Attached is the interview with Stan Gorski, Director, Paul J. Gutman Library at Philadelphia University (now Jefferson University) Library Director Stan Gorski gives the history of the significant buildings on the Philadelphia University campus.

Gorski: Gibb House was built for Kolb’s daughter. The architects are Charles Barton, Keen and Walls. The date the house was built was 1926. When Mrs. Gibbs, (who is actually Elizabeth Kolb) was married, the house was given to them. She is Kolb’s daughter. I’m not sure, I would have to do some research in my files to see what building was there before that. Gibb, Ralph A. Gibbs was involved in the glass industry and right around the World War II his company developed a bullet proof type of glass or a higher resistance type of glass. There was money and he was a successful manufacturer. The house was donated in 1975 to our institution. Interestingly enough, our school tried to buy it a number of times before she had passed away but there were always problems with money. She would ask the school to jump through numerous hoops to get it and once she died she gave the house to us.

Ellen:Her son lives down at the corner of Netherfield.

Gorski: The cottage on the property. I don’t know when that was built or what time. I’m not sure if any servants lived there. I’m not sure if it was the Gibbs family that bought this but during the Sesquicentennial in 1926 apparently one of the displays was a small house, a small cabin I think. It was done by the Camden newspaper and they had it on display and apparently in one way or another a family must have purchased it. I’m not sure if it was the Gibbs family. There was a dollhouse behind.

Ellen:Yes I read about that. Is it still there?

Gorski: No.

Ellen:When was it moved?

Gorski: I don’t know what happened to it but I do know where it was originally. I know it was a part of the Sesquicentennial and I even have the company that made it or was used as an advertisement. Again I’d have to go into my record but I could pull that out. It was something that would have to do with newspapers. I think in Camden or New Jersey some newspapers were using it at a display.

Ellen: I think we have it in here – I will show it to you because 1 was reading something about that.

Gorski: I have a picture of their building while it was on the Sesqui. Now the other thing is – I think, I haven’t been able to verify this, but I think the staircase in there was Yellin ironwork. Because in the Yellin records, they do list working for the Gibbs family on School House Lane. And I think that is probably what they did.

Ellen: I remember that was a feature when we went into the house on a tour.

Gorski: And Yellin is considered the premier iron work.

Ellen: Now how about some information about Tuttleman.

Gorski: Now Tuttleman, you know is relatively new. It was just built in 2001. 1 have the architecture as the Hillier Group. The interesting thing, it is basically all classrooms. It is a modern classroom building. The interesting thing about Tuttleman, if you’re on the outside and if you stood at the outside of Tuttleman looking at it, there are 3 levels. It is a two story building and has a peak where it goes up. If you look at the designs on the building, Mr. and Mrs. Tuttleman have designs at the top, then there are these plaques on the second floor and the bottom floor. The second floor are long plaques and the ones in the bottom are little squares. Those plaques indicate the activity and likes and dislikes of the children and the grandchildren. On the bottom level you will see plaques with a computer and some other things and that’s because one of the grandchildren really liked computer games. And then there is one with a football and some shoes and that is because the kid really liked playing football. So all those little squares are all associated with relatives of the Tuttleman family.

Ellen: So the Tuttleman’s paid for the building and, as a part of that, they wanted some family recognition?

Gorski: Yes. They are on concrete squares designed by an artist. There were molds made; they were not chiseled out. They were probably clay mold with the concrete poured into them.

Ellen: Well who was Tuttleman first of all?

Gorski: He’s still alive.

Ellen: Was he a graduate?

Gorski: He’s not a graduate of this school, he’s not alumni. He’s basically somebody who is interested in education in the Philadelphia area because he has donated some money to some of the other institutions for buildings.

Ellen: What is his money source? Is he a manufacturer?

Gorski: Oh, I don’t know right off hand. I could check into that. Actually that’s not a bad question. One other interesting thing, aesthetic wise, if you walk into the main door or the vestibule you will see a statue of Thomas Jefferson sitting on a bench. The artist who did that is George Lunden. That statue is a limited edition of one of 36 for that size. There is a smaller desktop edition of one of 500 but of that full size there is only one of 36. One of the things that 1 always mention is that’s our connection with Beverly Hills. In Beverly Hills they have one in their park full size. So they own one in Beverly Hills and we own one and it’s in our lobby.

Ellen:That’s good. East Falls deserves that to be on a part with Beverly Hills.

Gorski: Actually Colonial Williamsburg has a full size one too. There is our minor connection with Beverly Hills. All the artwork, all of the posters that are in Tuttleman, I don’t know if you have ever walked the halls in there.

Ellen: Just in the auditorium section because that’s where they have community council meetings.

Gorski: I believe, I might be wrong on this, I believe they are all reproductions and not the originals. Even though they are reproductions they are quite attractive than everything else, but 1 don’t think they are the originals.

Ellen:Should we go on to White Corners?

Gorski: Well White Corners was the original. That was originally built by the Carstairs family but it went to…

Ellen:Do you know when it was built; what year?

Gorski: It’s probably 1920’s; 1 don’t know the exact year. And I think it was build, I think the Carstairs family commissioned it but they never lived there. Or maybe they did for a little bit. You know, 1 keep on coming up with this date of 1915 but I am not absolutely sure on that.

Ellen:For White Corners?

Gorski: Yes. I do have an architect as Brockie and Hastings. It was eventually purchased by Leon Levy, and Leon Levy’s brother-in-law was William Paley who became CBS.

Ellen:And Goldie Paley was the mother right?

Gorski: Right. She owned the Paley Design Center and her daughter donated it to the school. White Corners we had to buy because….

Ellen: Do you know when you purchased that?

Gorski: Yes that was purchased in 1993. The story behind, that the way we actually received it is one of Leon Levy’s sons, and 1 didn’t get an exact name.

Ellen: Bobby?

Gorski: I’m not sure which one it is but if you want me to, I can check my files.

Ellen: No, it’s alright.

Gorski: Yeah, I know 1 did this whole Paley family tree because 1 couldn’t figure out who’s who because it was so complicated. 1927, they purchased White Corners in the mid 30’s as their family residence. Goldie dies and Blanch donates her mother’s house to the University in 1977.

Ellen: Okay, wait a minute, Blanche was the daughter, and she donated it to the University?

Gorski: Well, that’s the Design Center.

Ellen:Oh, the Design Center in her mother’s name. And what year was that?

Gorski: It was 1977. Blanche dies in the ’90.

Ellen: So he left Goldie 12 million?

Gorski: Well Samuel Paley, her husband, did when he died, in 1963.

Ellen:So Goldie died at 95?

Gorski: Yes in 1977 and that’s when Blanche, who’s still at White Corners, donates her mother’s house to the university. Then Blanch dies in the 1990s. Because their son went to Penn Charter, they donated it to Penn Charter.

Ellen:So it was owned by Penn Charter?

Gorski: Yes, Bob Levy. They owned Penn Charter but Penn Charter couldn’t figure out what to do with it because it was a little divorced from their property so they sold it to us. It was in really bad shape too. Well I mean there was a lot of renovation that went on. I know certainly there was a lot of interior renovation, I guess there wasn’t so much outside. I think we filled in the pool. I think the school filled in both the pools. ’92 is when we purchased it from Penn Charter. Of course we have that whole thing about the Rouse that Frank Sinatra.

Ellen: Yes, I remember that.Hayward Hall, do we know anything about Hayward Hall?

Gorski: Hayward Hall is actually the first building…when the Colb estate was bought. They bought the Colb estate in ’46. When it was actually bought it was still…

Ellen:’46 you said?

Gorski: Welt ’46 was actually when the Colb estate was purchased by a nun (?). It wasn’t actually purchased by the school, though this just gets confusing. The school at the time was still affiliated with the Philadelphia Art Museum and the School of Industrial Arts, so we could not actually purchase it outright. It was a non-profit fundraising group called the “Foundation” or the Textiles School that actually bought it at that time so it was actually bought in ’46. When the school finally was able to legally remove itself from and become a separate institution, which was during ’46 and ’47, the school then officially moved to this location, but there were no classrooms or anything here. They started building Hayward and the library called Hesslin Library which doesn’t exist because that’s where Kanbar is now. So you don’t have that building. But Hayward, they basically started building both at the same time.

Hayward was supposed to be the main school building; it was where all the classrooms are. The lower level had a cafeteria, had offices for the associations all the administrative offices, faculty offices were in there. The architect was Ewing Incorporated. The cornerstone on Hayward says 1949; the construction started in ’48, maybe fall of ’47. The building was designed to look like a modern textile company building. In fact it was supposed to be like ultra-modern. I mean if you were building the most modern textile building, this is what it was supposed to look like. So that’s the reason why it is somewhat factory looking. Now the only place where they did any sort of ornamentation to it was in the foyer which has the marble floor and the little art deco steel on the side, like designs and so forth. And to be honest, it is not a whole lot. But I guess if you were building a factory you wouldn’t have done that.

Ellen: No, but it gave it a little flair.

Gorski: Yes. Let’s see, if there is anything else really.

Ellen:Well now it’s really the design center for the fashion department, would you say or not? I mean at least the first floor when you go in.

Gorski: Yes, they have –well, the textiles school… most of the machinery has been moved out. There is still some textile machinery in it. The health and sciences are in there but they are supposed to move out also. There are offices; the textile school offices are located in there. I shouldn’t say textiles – it’s engineering and textiles; the school of Engineering and Textiles is still located in there. It is constantly shifting around, but it’s mainly classroom. But some of the CAD labs are in there. Now the interesting thing, if somebody walks in there, again this whole thing was designed mainly for a textile school so the corridors are extra wide for moving machinery. The elevators, if you go in there, one of the main elevators -if you go and use it – it is a freight elevator basically. It is a big elevator; it’s not like a small personal. If you look at both ends, if you see on the second floor there are these large doors and they are actually at opposite ends of the corridor and they are again for moving large machinery – move it right down the corridor and move it right out of the building. There’s pendants, well that’s not the proper word. There are concrete supports on the ceiling, on the roofs on both ends for lifts, so you can pull up.

Ellen: And this is on the outside?

Gorski: Yes, you can still see them if you look for them. Where you can attach pulleys for moving heavy equipment in and out of the building. It was designed to be functional. It’s named after one of the Deans’ of the school, Burt Hayward, who was the Dean between 1947 and 1973.

Ellen: So, do you think we will be able to go into that building that day or not? It will be open, I mean that’s the day you will be having the open house. Do you think it will be open?

Gorski: Yes it should be open.

Ellen:And do you think it will be a problem as a group, or do you think they would stop us?

Gorski: There probably won’t be a desk or anything there. If you could, I don’t see why you couldn’t, but 1 certainly would get approval by PR there shouldn’t be any problem sticking your head in. Well, of course you can’t do it in the President’s house, you won’t be able to do it in the Smith house. But walking into Ravenhill should be alright, Tuttleman – walking into the lobby of Tuttleman should not be a problem. White Corners, that you might not. Hayward you should be able to enter the foyer there is no security or control or anything there and it is a wide open area, It should be able to hold 20-30 people. Gutman Library you should be able to walk into.

Ellen: Is that going to be open that day too?

Gorski: What day is that?

Ellen: It’s a Saturday and it’s the day of the open house when they are going to have students and parents.

Gorski: What time will you be there?

Ellen: Ours is from 1-2:30.

Gorski: Yes, we are open normally from 10-5 on Saturdays. And 1 should mention, if it wasn’t for the fact I have some prior commitments, I would be able to do it myself.

Ellen: I think we should be fine, I appreciate that.

Gorski: I like doing tours.

Ellen: Oh I know, they are really fun. How about Gutman Library itself?

Gorski: Have you ever seen the outside faces on the building?

Ellen: We have photographs of it that were taken by, a professional photographer who lived on Netherfield that were donated to us. We have the building of the library and the actual finished library.

Gorski: So you are aware that there are faces?

Ellen: Now there are faces on the concrete?

Gorski: Yes, they are on the corners and so forth.

Ellen: Who are they?

Gorski: Well, when the building was built in ’92, they had a sculpture/artist. Her name is Syma. She came and took life masks from mostly students and the Gutmans, Mr. and Mrs. Gutman and two board of trustee members I think. And I think there were one or two faculty members too. Now Mr. and Mrs. Gutman, when you leave the building I’ll point them out. They are actually on the side of the building. I do have a chart with all of the, each name, each year, each space and everything else.

Ellen: There are no names underneath?

Gorski: No, I mean unless you knew the students, of course. It was ’92 so they are gone. But these are really based on real people; these are not fantasy images, these are all real people.

Ellen: So who were the Gutmans?

Gorski: The Gutman’s owned a textile company in the south. Their son was killed in a plane crash and he was a relatively young man. I think he was early 40’s. There is a picture of him in the foyer as you are coming up. He didn’t go here, and actually Mr. Gutman, the father, did not go here either. However he had certainly been aware of our institution and the school. I don’t know how they first got into contact, but they had been in contact probably asking for money early on, based on the textile connection. Then after his son was killed in the private plane crash, I think they were probably looking for some way to memorialize him. The school, at the time, was involved with raising money for a number of things. There was a fundraising campaign going on – around 10 million dollars and I think this building cost around 7.

Ellen: 7 billion or did you say million?

Gorski: No, 10 million. Even in ’92 it was 10 million and 1 think this building was somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 million – somewhere between 7 and 8 million. I hate to talk in these terms but the Gutman’s got a really nice deal. They didn’t pay the whole thing. They paid somewhere between 1 to 2 million dollars. The school really needed a cornerstone donor. If you get a major donor then other people are more apt to give because they know what’s going to happen. They start to think this is real and something is really going to happen. So the Gutmans gave between a million and two million with the idea that it was going to be named after their son and that is the name J. Gutman Library.

Ellen: Jay?

Gorski: No, just the initial J. They were the main donors. When you consider going to Harvard with a million dollars, they would say here is a classroom maybe with a little plaque or something. You know, we got a nice library and they got the name.

Ellen: What is the significance of the ceiling up there, do you know? I mean it’s beautiful.

Gorski: It is; it’s stained glass. It was commissioned. I was involved with the interior design – I mean, they asked the librarians to be involved and I was working here at the time.

Ellen: So this was 1992? How long have you been here?

Gorski: One way or another, I have been around since 82 or’81. I haven’t been full time till the late ’80’s but I have been around. I was here even before Gallagher was here or before we owned Ravenhill. I think it was ’81 when I started.

Ellen: So when did you acquire Ravenhill?

Gorski: 1982

Ellen: Oh okay, you don’t know what the ceiling is?

Gorski: Well, it was commissioned, but what they had originally planned for was – I’m not sure if you have been on the second floor here – but there is a skylight running the length of the second floor and it is very attractive. In fact, if you bring a group in here you can actually go up to the second floor if you wanted to. But what they had originally planned was, for the skylight, was to be an open atrium type to this floor. When they couldn’t do that the President said he wanted something aesthetic and they were going back and forth. 1 don’t know who the stained glass people are but I would assume it might be Willit, the people in Chestnut Hill.

Ellen: Yes, I think they did Ravenhill’s glass.

Gorski: They did the chapel. But I know President Gallagher wanted this to be a showplace, that’s why everything was done in dark wood. I mean the Board of Trustee’s room is upstairs, where the Board of Trustee’s meeting room is, and he wanted this to be a showplace, in his mind. It was one of the most expensive buildings we had built up to that time, so l can see why it wasn’t possible to do an atrium type thing. I could see him saying, “Well, give me stained glass with lights behind it or something…’

Ellen: Something attractive.

Gorski: Something attractive, and it is attractive. I mean there is lighting behind lt. That’s why it shines through. At the time it was built, I should mention, that the Shepley Bullfinch which is the architectural firm and they specialize in doing libraries, It’s a library architectural firm.

Ellen: Oh, are they local?

Gorski: No, out of Boston. And there were some architectural awards that were given to the building at the time. Shepley and Bulfinch did Kanbar. The former President Gallagher really liked what they had done.

Ellen: So it’s called the campus center?

Gorski: Yes, It’s basically….

Ellen: They were about the same time frame? That was the next building built after this building you think?

Gorski: Kanbar was basically 2005. Tuttleman was the one in between, Tuttleman was 2001. And then of course there were some renovations and so forth, but after this building there was Tuttleman and Kanbar. And of course, at the same time, the changes to the athletic center which is now the Gallagher.

Ellen: It used to be Althouse Hall; now it’s called the Gallagher Center. That was part of the Kanbar campus renovation?

Gorski: Yes, Kanbar – he was an alumni of the school and so forth and he donated money to the campus center. At the same time they raised money to have renovation to Althouse Hall. Now it is called Gallagher Athletic Recreation and Convocation Center. And actually – oh, that’s interesting too – I forgot that Shepley and Bullfinch are also the architects on that.

Ellen: It wasn’t rebuilt, it was just designed?

Gorski: Well, the Althouse, was like a building in front and they kind of expanded on to it. But the expansion was 134 times the original size of the Althouse. Technically if you go into it, Althouse is still like the front end. Althouse was an alumni of this school and he donated money. Whether this means anything, Althouse used to be a big chemical firm in Philadelphia and they were involved in textile dye stuffs. And in fact he donated a lot of money to Lehigh University also. But now the building, the extension and so forth is known as the Gallagher Rec Center.

Ellen: And then you’ve got Kanbar.

Gorski: Kanbar is the student center, I mean it’s called campus center. But it has meeting spaces, it has the cafeteria, mailroom, there are all these student government offices on the third floor – student affairs are all up there.

Ellen: That was once in Redgate?

Gorski: Yes, everything that used to be over in Redgate is in Kanbar and more too because I mean the student store used to be in Hesslin. The student bookstore used to be in there – now that is in Kanbar also.

Ellen: Yes I remember that little store.

Gorski: Actually that little store was the library; that used to be the library way back.

Ellen: Yes my son went here, and he was the president of Sig Ep and they used to be in Redgate. He loved that building and he really missed that when they tore it down.

Gorski: A lot of people were upset about that.

Ellen: Yes, because there is nothing there now basically.

Gorski: Well, I don’t know what’s going to happen because the funding – the money isn’t there right now. But what they are supposed to do is take down the dorms, those townhouses. The townhouses are going to be taken down and what they are going to build, what I have seen proposed, is an H shaped building. It will be in a shape of an H with two long wings and then with a cross building in between and it will be dorms and office space

Ellen: So there will be more dorms then what they have here?

Gorski: Yes.

Ellen: Yes, they are very attractive those dorms; I’m sure.

Gorski: Yes, but they don’t hold many people. When they built them, they were built in the 70’s and it was a good idea for the amount of students. I mean we still have students over at Alden Park – we don’t have the space. Even after buying Independence Plaza. When you go back to the 60’s, the school was 20-30 percent boarding; the rest was all commuter. Now it is 80 percent boarding, 20 percent commute. Maybe 70-30 – something like that. You are pulling more out of the state, out of the area. Let’s face it, kids prefer to go away, then back and forth to school even if they live in Philadelphia. We need more dorm space and we have a lot more program so we need office faculty space.

Ellen: So very good, so are we done?

Gorski: Yes, basically Kanbar, he’s the alumni, as an entrepreneur has done well for himself. There is a vodka, Skyy Blue Vodka, I think he developed, that is one of the things he has been involved in. So he didn’t make his money in textiles.

Ellen: So he made it in alcohol?

Gorski: Well that and some.

Ellen: Could I have a copy of that paper, or no?

Gorski: Well, this is like my notes and so forth. I mean I’ll make you a copy. See what I do is when I do a walking tour, these are the things that I thought were interesting. Like the ram, the ram statue was actually a donation by the Class of 2007 and President Gallagher also threw some money into it. I don’t know what the percentage is or whatever. I just have little notes on here, and this is my official architectural records and I can print you out that. Do you know the story behind Rosneath Farms?

Ellen: No, but I remember it from growing up there.

Gorski: You know, there were two to three homes. They had, I think, between 30-40 psychiatric beds.

Ellen: Was it just a house that stood there and it was converted? Was it a rehabilitation center for recovering alcoholics or people with medical problems?

Gorski: It ended up being a turn of the century Victorian house, nothing as elaborate as the ones around it.

Ellen: We don’t have a picture of that, do we?

Gorski: Well the only pictures I have are the ones after it was burnt and they were tearing it down. Did you want to get copies made?

Ellen: Yes because somebody just asked us recently and I contacted somebody at the university to see if you had any photos. Do you know what year it burnt down?

Gorski: They bought it with the idea of using…

Ellen: The University bought it?

Gorski: We bought it in ’67 and there were 3 buildings, seven acres. The buildings were destroyed by fire in July 24, 1970 and we were going to turn it into dorm spaces.

Ellen: Did they ever determine how the fire started?

Gorski: That’s an interesting question. No, not that I know of. Here’s what it looked like.

Ellen:So there were three buildings. Oh my gosh, that’s amazing; it’s beautiful. What a place, so this looks like it was put on as an addition.

Gorski: Yes it was tacked on.

Ellen: This is bigger than I remember. So is this from School House Lane?

Gorski: No actually I think this is from the back of it.

Ellen: So this would be Warden Drive?

Gorski: Maybe.

Ellen: There is that big hill down there behind it, so that might be the front of it. Because I think I remember, but I don’t remember it looking like this.

Gorski: So maybe this is the front.

Ellen: Yes, that’s got to be the front.

Gorski: Yes here is School House Lane, but it might be an angled shot. This might be off to the side. This is real tough because these shots, and then of course here is the one with the sign.

Ellen: How do you spell it? Oh, Roseneath. That’s how I always pronounced it.

Gorski: I have seen that spelling. I think they are wrong, but then again who knows. Let me see, here is the one after the fire.

Ellen: Oh my, that was pretty devastating.

Gorski: Yes, there was nothing we could do.

Ellen: ls there any way we could get a copy of this?

Gorski: I’ll see if I can get some copies made. Like here you can see the building has obviously been added on to. This whole front part is probably an open porch and just increased bed space. They probably just enclosed it at some point and they didn’t real care what it looked like.

Ellen: Oh, and that was the entrance?

Gorski: Yes, must have been.

Ellen: Oh my, how majestic. So Philadelphia University owned it when it burned down?

Gorski: Yes.

Ellen: And it was used as a rehabilitation center?

Gorski: Well, from what I am able to determine, the original man who started the whole thing, I mean, bought the property, Dr. Joseph McCarthy, was a well know neurologist at the time. Well this is turn of the century 1900’s, 1910. Neurologist involved with the diagnosis of mental diseases. He owned property where the German end of School House Lane on the right hand side the whole complex.

Ellen: Gypsy Lane?

Gorski: Gypsy Lane Apartments. He owned that as a gentleman’s farm. He owned that whole property and he had a private practice. The private practice was in Rosneath.

Ellen: Why was it called Rosneath?

Gorski: I think that was the original name.

Ellen: Original owner?

Gorski: Original owner going back. Because of his interests and his needs he turned it into a private psychiatric hospital. Over the years, after it passed from his hands and I have dates on McCarthy and so forth but I don’t know what happened after him. Let’s see, he was a Professor at University of Penn, an expert in insanity.

Ellen: When was it that the University purchased it?

Gorski: ’67. I do know that as late as ’63, because I have seen old directories. The building, or Roseneath Farms, was at that time listed as an alcohol rehabilitation center. I think over the years various owners you know turned it into a treatment facility. You can see they added on space and so forth and it kind of depended on who the owner was and what treatment facility. Seemed like they could make a few dollars and that’s probably what they wanted to do. And it was always full profit, as least as much as I could tell.

Ellen: Well, now there was always this rumor – Grace Kelly recommended it to Bing Crosby who was having problems and stayed there because he didn’t want anyone to know at that time. He covered that up and this was an out of the way place that she knew about.

Gorski: Oh yes because she was right there, and to be honest with you, I find it fascinating in all this discussion about the Ravenhill Academy and it’s right next door. I mean literally like walking, it’s just a couple hundred feet. And the psychiatric facility, no one ever talks about it but you know that’s an interesting story, I hadn’t heard of that before but it could have been a possibility to it. I mean it could be. The thing that I find fascinating is the school is really, you know after this burn. There is an envelope that the board of trustees minutes for around that time and people talk “Let’s get rid of the property, let’s sell it, what can we do?” We want it because of the buildings, and they held on to it. Well now I mean if they had gotten rid of it – I mean if they had sold it, it would have broken up the whole campus, broken up the whole line. Who cares about the buildings, I mean those buildings might have been torn down – it is the land that is important.

Ellen: Alright, well I think that’s it. Thank you very much.

Gorski: What’s also interesting if you look at Ravenhill now, you see a lot of open land around it and everything else and that was seven acres that was part of the farm so their property was a little bit more enclosed then it actually looks now. I mean the seven acres would have been, if you walk past Smith House you can see Ravenhill and the other buildings but you would still have to go further if you got to it at that time because that’s where Roseneath Farms was.

Ellen: Did you know that the building at Ravenhill, that it was a summer house that would have been more towards School House Lane, maybe in front of Assumpta Hall there. And it had a wraparound porch and it was a summer house and it was a home for unwed mothers.

Gorski: When Weightman lived there, there was another mansion on the opposite side where Powers lived. It used to be called Weightman and Powers. In fact as there is a photograph which I don’t have here, Physical Plant has the photograph and I’ve tried negotiating with them. It was taken in the 50’s with an aerial view. The mansion still exists, but the Powers mansion at some point in time went to the Episcopal charities. They could have used it as…maybe if the Sisters had something that would be interesting, that I had never heard of.

Ellen: Well one of the Sisters told me about it, and this was back in the ’70’s

Gorski: That has not shown up in any of my research. That the religious order that ran Ravenhill had one.

Ellen: It may not have run it but I remember her talking about the wraparound porch and it was a summer home.

Gorski: See since you started talking about it I assumed that was the Power’s mansion.

Ellen: Maybe, maybe that’s what it was.

Gorski: Because that was right literally almost next door; it was on the other side.

Ellen: I don’t know whether that was torn down or she told me it burned down.

Gorski: See I thought that mansion – I know the Powers mansion eventually became part of the Episcopal services. But I don’t know what it was used for, how long or anything.

Ellen: I can’t see the Sisters at the school having a home for unwed mothers when they are running a school for girls so it probably was Episcopal Services.

Gorski: But eventually from what I understand, but I don’t have any dates, that building was acquired by nuns from Ravenhill and then where that extension was built.

Ellen: Yes Assumpta Hall we called it.

Gorski: Which now is Fortess, the corner of Fortess. That was built, well I don’t know if it was built on the property but it would have been. I mean I don’t know if the building was in place, if the new building would actually be built on the footprint of the building but it certainly extends into that land where the mansion was.

Ellen: Okay, alright. That sounds like it would be accurate from my memory of what she told me about it. END

Jerry Porto, born on Calumet Street in East Falls, talks about his life in East Falls – St. Bridget, Ridge Avenue, making wine at home.

LD: This is Lyda Doyle and Wendy Moody and we are interviewing Jerry Porto on March 5, 2018 at Meadowview Rehab Center.WM: Hi Jerry how are you doing today?GP: A little better than yesterday.WM: Good; glad to hear it. We can stop whenever you want. So let’s begin by asking where and when you were born.GP: I was born February 8, 1928.WM: And was that in Philadelphia?GP: That was on Calumet Street.

WM: Were you born right at home?

GP: Yes.

WM: In your house?

GP: On Calumet Street.

WM: Do you know the number on Calumet?

GP: Yes. 3642 Calumet Street.

WM: Was there a midwife or a doctor; do you know?

GP: No doctor; no midwife.

WM: Can you tell us about your parents? What were your parents’ names?

GP: My mom’s name was Aralia Porto.

WM: How do you spell Aralia?

GP: A-L-A-R-A-I -A

WM: What was her maiden name?

GP: Good question.

WM: We can go back to that. What was your father’s name?

GP: Joseph Porto P-O-R-T-O.WM: Did they grow up in East Falls?

GP: They landed in East Falls and that’s where they lived. He went to war against the Germans.WM: World War II or World War I?

GP: World War I.

WM: Where was he born?

GP: My dad was born in Italy.

WM: And your mother?

GP: My mom also was born there.

LD: So when he came back from the war they gave him his citizenship, right?GP: Yes.LD: Yes, because anyone who fought for the Allies was automatically given a citizenship. WM: When he fought in the war was he still living in Italy or was he already here?

GP: He was already here and they sent him to war and luckily he did not get killed.WM: Did your parents meet in East Falls? How did they meet? GP: Before he went to war – they met on Calumet Street I guess.

WM: And were they married in East Falls?

GP: They were married before he went to war.

WM: At St. Bridget’s?

GP: Maybe there; I don’t know.

WM: Do you have brothers and sisters?

GP: Yes I do. I’ve got two brothers and one sister.

WM: And where are you in the birth order? Are you the oldest?

GP: No. I was the third.

WM: What were their names?GP: Her name was Aralia.WM: Like your mother. And your brothers? GP: Same name as my dad – Joseph, Jr.WM: And your other brother?GP: Frank.

WM: And so it was Joseph, Aralia, and Gerald – three children. GP: Yeah. And the one sister she got sick and passed away.WM: Not Aralia – a different sister?GP: Yes.WM: That’s so sad. So tell us a little bit about your growing up – you grew up on Calumet?GP: I grew up on Calumet.WM: And what school did you go to? GP: I went to St. Bridget’s – and when I went there I could not speak English so they kept me in first grade for two years.WM: Because your parents spoke Italian at home?GP: Yeah.WM: That must have been hard. What did your father do? GP: My father worked for a company that digs graves.WM: Was that all around the city?GP: That was in Philadelphia. LD: Did the nuns keep you after school to teach English? GP: Yes, but they were not very successful.WM: You’re speaking it now though…! Tell us about St. Bridget. What are your memories of going to school there?

GP: St. Bridget was a good place. They were really strict. That was the worst of it.WM: Did you get in trouble?

GP: I got in trouble because I didn’t understand what they wanted and they didn’t understand what I wanted so we were always at odds.

WM: Did you go there till eighth grade? GP: No. I went there for about five years – actually six, because they kept me back and then I joined the Service. WM: At a young age.GP: Yeah. 17. And I had to get my dad to sign. In order for me to be able to join…WM: At 17. Were you in a high school? Germantown or Roxborough?GP: No high school. Just fifth grade. That was it, as far as education.

WM: Ok. Tell us a little more about St. Bridget. What did you do at recess?GP: We couldn’t understand each other so well so they would give me jobs like painting the chairs and odds and ends that needed to be done at the convent.LD: Were there any other Italian speaking children at the school when you were there too?GP: No.LD: Just you. Wow…GP: Yeah, that was lonesome.WM: Did you go home for lunch every day?GP: Yes, yes. Lunch every day we went home.WM: Do you remember any special things that happened at St. Bridget – any plays, ceremonies or anything?GP: Nothing that was special.LD: Did you make your first Holy Communion there?GP: Yes.LD: And your confirmation?GP: Yes.WM: Any afterschool activities or anything else at St. Bridget?GP: Just to go paint the chairs.WM: And what did you do after school? Where did you hang out?GP: I went down to Ridge and Midvale with the other guys.WM: Who were your friends?GP: Well, they were not very good… what I mean to say to say is that they were a little dishonest…WM: What did you do at Ridge And Midvale?GP: Just talk and watch the girls (laughter)WM: Can you describe what Ridge Avenue was like when you were a child?GP: Yes. It was kind of quiet there. There wasn’t much traffic or nothing. Every once in a while a car would go by and we would try to name the original maker of the car and whoever would give the right answer would be like – not a hero, but…WM: What stores do you remember along Ridge and Midvale?

GP: There were a lot of stores that were all there. We had good and bad.WM: Can you name some of them going down from Odd Fellows Hall – the Masonic Hall?GP: Yes I do remember that.WM: What was in that building?GP: That Masonic Hall. They used to bring people there to sing. WM: Upstairs?GP: Yeah, they had to go upstairs and then they acclimated and then they started singing. It was nice to hear them.WM: Was there a hardware store on the first floor?GP: Yes there was! That was the original hardware store in East Falls.WM: What was the name of that?GP: That’s a good question. We never had no money to buy anything.WM: Did you go in there though? Can you describe it?GP: No. We never had no money to go buy anything. We were not allowed to do things we weren’t supposed to do.LD: Was there a grocery store down there? Or a butcher shop?GP: Yes, McGuire’s Butcher.

WM: And that was right on Ridge?

Yeah it was

LD: How about the Major Drug Store – was that there then?

GP: Oh that was there forever!

WM: What was that like?

GP: It was popular but we never had no money to go in.

WM: Who owned that – do you know?

GP: No I don’t.

WM: Was Grace Presbyterian Church there?

GP:I think it was a Jewish man that owned it.

LD: Was there a butcher shop there? Sam’s butcher Shop? I believe he was Jewish also.GP: Yeah.

WM: Was Grace Presbyterian Church down there?

GP: Yeah.

WM: Can you describe that?

GP: That was nice.

WM: And it moved up to – do you remember when that church moved up to Vaux or when they destroyed it?

GP: No, I don’t remember.

LD: Would you like some water?

(pause)

WM: Just going back to St. Bridget’s for a minute, did you have any interaction with the other schools – Mifflin – did you play with Mifflin kids?GP: Not really. We stayed together.

LD: Did you ever play in the Inn Yard – you know, the little park across the street on Ridge Avenue?GP: No.

WM: Where did you play?

GP: We didn’t.

WM: Joe Petrone told us he used to walk across the river to go to Woodside Park. Did you do that?GP: Well, no. But Joe Petrone gave us jobs to paint whatever had to be done.

WM: That’s good. His father was a painter…

LD: And a paperhanger.

GP: We used to paint and he used to give us 75 cents.

WM: You painted different houses in East Falls?

GP: No, we painted the chairs in the convent. We used to paint the chairs for nothing but then he would give us 75 cents.WM: Did you go to McDevitt Playground?

GP: No.

WM: How about the library?

GP: I tried to get into the library to get some books out, but the language that I knew they didn’t know, so it failed.WM: That’s so sad. How did you finally learn such good English?

GP: Well I liked to read the books but I never had a chance to get the books. I didn’t know how to express myself.WM: Who finally taught you English?

GP: Hanging around the boys…

WM: So you went into the Army – tell us about that.

GP: I went into the Army. My dad had to sign in order to get me into the Army. I was 17.

WM: Where did they send you?

GP: They sent me to the Philippines.

WM: What do you remember about those years?

GP: Philippines was another country. The people were a lot different than I remember.

WM: Did you see action?

GP: Yes; you couldn’t help it.

LD: What was your job in the military?

GP: Just to be a soldier and that was it.

WM: And about what year was this? During WWII? Do you remember when you came home? Was it before the war ended?

GP: The war did end. Germany surrendered and I came home and I wound up at Ridge and Midvale with the boys. My friends.LD: Did you get a job after the war?

GP: Yes.

LD: What did you do?

GP: I worked for a company that was called Borno’s (?). They cleaned clothes –garments – and I got a job in there – in the rug department.WM: Where was that located?

GP: That was on – what’s the next street after Allegheny?

WM: Clearfield? Diamond?

LD: Lehigh? Westmoreland? No, that’s before Allegheny.

GP: No.

WM: So this was in North Philly?

GP: Yes.WM: And how long did you work there?GP: I worked there until I got into the Service.

LD: It wasn’t Hunting Park was it?GP: It could have been Hunting Park.WM: Oh, you worked there before you went into the Service.GP: Yeah.WM: What happened after you came home? Did you get a job?GP: I tried to get a job. I wanted to go to school. (Silence)WM: Did you ever get married, Gerry? GP: Yes.WM: Was your wife from East Falls?GP: Yes, she was a girl who used to come to Calumet Street WM: What was her maiden name?GP: Her name was Nancy but her real name was Regina.WM: And her last name before she got married?GP: Her father was a boss of…WM: Did you get married at St. Bridget?GP: Yes. No. We didn’t get married first at St. Bridget. We got married first at her church up in Roxborough and then after that and then we got married at St. (?)WM: Do you remember what her church was in Roxborough? Was she Catholic?GP: It wasn’t Catholic. And we had 49 ½ good years. (cries)WM: Oh Gerry. I wish I had known her. So when you married her, did you move to a different house in East Falls?GP: No – same house. I had bought a house and it was dilapidated and it took me one year to make it presentable for her to move in.WM: This was a different house than the one you grew up?GP: Yes. WM: What was the house number that you bought?GP: 3630 Calumet Street.LD: Is that the one with the front porch?GP: An open porch.

LD: Up near Skidoo Street?GP: Yeah.WM: And you lived there your whole marriage?GP: 49 ½ years.WM: And what was your job during those years?GP: What was my job? Carpenter. I learned how to be a carpenter through books.WM: Did people hire you to build houses? Furniture?GP: Houses.LD: Did you fix houses for other people? You worked on their houses?GP: Yeah, but I was not successful in making money.WM: Did you build any houses in East Falls?GP: I helped build one but… (pause)

WM: Not a whole house in itself…GP: Yes.WM: Did Nancy work also?GP: Yes. She worked at Sears & Roebuck. She had to go to Center City to work. We had a beautiful 49 ½ years of beautiful life.LD: Did she take the train to go down to Center City?GP: Yes. She’d go down to Cresson Street and take a train.WM: When you were married to her, what kinds of activities did you do in East Falls? Were there any restaurants, events?GP: There were restaurants but I didn’t buy anything from the restaurants. They were too expensive and not what I wanted to eat.WM: Do you remember holidays in East Falls when you were growing up? Fourth of July?GP: Yes!WM: Tell us about that.GP: Fourth of July was a happy time and everybody was happy.WM: Did you have a picnic?GP: We didn’t have a picnic but we went to one.LD: St. Bridget’s picnic?GP: No, I think they cut that out for some reason.WM: Where did you see the fireworks from?GP: We had to wait until a long time until it got dark but we did see some.WM: Do you remember you stood to watch them? The reservoir?GP: We stood on the bridge on Cresson Street.LD: How did you celebrate Christmas?GP: We celebrated by giving each other presents.LD: Did you have a special Italian dinner?GP: Italian food.LD: The 7 Fishes?GP: Yeah. I can’t think of anything else.WM: Did you know Robert Connolly who lived on Calumet?GP: Yes.WM: He was a great guy. What do you remember about him?GP: He was a great guy. He was popular and everybody followed him.WM: I met him once – we corresponded through email – he was down in Cape May then. I went down to see him and then he died. But he sent me many emails about what he remembered doing in East Falls – playing half ball…did you do any sports?GP: No; work. A lot of work.

WM: So it was hard to make ends meet?

GP: Well, no harder than it is today I guess.

WM: Tell me about your brother – the one whose letters we found at the library.

GP: Frank. He was the lover of the family.

WM: I could tell that from his letters…

GP: He has boxes and boxes and boxes of letters.

LD: Was he older than you?

GP: Yes, he was the oldest.

WM: Is he the one that made the jewelry?

GP: Yes.

WM: Was that his career?

GP: No. He made many, many things that people didn’t know how he accomplished them.LD: Did you have a brother Jacques Porto?

GP: That was Frank.

LD: Was that his nickname?

GP: Yes – they gave him a fancy name because he was the lover of the family.

LD: So they gave him a French-sounding name.

GP: They gave him a fancy name – Jacques.

WM: Do you remember at St Bridget ever meeting the Kellys?

GP: Meeting the Kellys?

WM: The Kelly family.

GP: Yes. Grace.

WM: Did you meet her?

GP: Yes I did. Did you know that Grace Kelly was somehow or other – wherever she went – she went towards the older men – she didn’t go after the younger men.WM: I didn’t know that. Can you describe her? I never got to see her.

GP: She was a pretty woman. Very popular.

WM: Did the whole family go to St. Bridget on Sunday?

GP: Yes – my family.

WM: And did the Kellys come in to church?

GP: I remember the old man – yeah. I remember stuff that’s not very pleasant. The old man crossed his brother – who got him a job selling bricks.WM: Was that P. H. Kelly?LD: Patrick?GP: The one that owned the company gave him a job and then after a while – rather than selling the company, he formed another company and cheated his brother.LD: His own construction company you mean?WM: His brother’s…LD: I mean J. B. Kelly started his own company.GP: That’s what I mean – he cheated his brother.

WM: Do you remember going up to the area where they lived growing up? What was that area like?GP: It was always busy with cars

WM: So you didn’t go up too much to McMichael?

GP: No. it was no fun.

WM: How about the reservoir?

GP: Oh that’s different. That was more fun.

WM: You’d hang out there with your friends?

GP: Yeah.

WM: How would you spend your time there?

GP: Well we’d enjoy ourselves you know. I had my wife and I spent most of my time with my wife.WM: Did you have any children?GP: Yes. One.WM: And who is that?GP: My daughter. Her name is Regina. The reason I had only one was because we found out later that my wife had diabetes.WM: Oh, I’m sorry. What year was Regina born? Was that after the war?GP: Fifty some years ago – 53. 1953 or 54.LD: At any point did you buy a car?GP: Yes.LD: What was it?GP: A Chevy. In the back of the car there were six – three round lights on one side and three round lights on the other.LD: Tail lights.

GP: Yeah.

WM: Was that in the 1950s or 60s?

GP: 50s?

WM: Now when did you move next to Billy Murphy’s?

GP: The house was abandoned for a long time and then I – in fact it was the last house that the brewery owner had.WM: Hohenadel.

GP: Hohenadel owned all those houses. And he would rent them to the people who worked at the factory. And that one house – 3642 – that I had a chance to buy it and I did.WM: You moved from Calumet Street to that house?GP: Yes.

WM: Was that after Nancy died?

GP: No.

WM: You lived there with her?

GP: Yeah… 49 ½ good years.

WM: Do you remember the brewery there on the corner?

GP: Yes.

WM: Can you describe that? Did you ever go in it?

GP: No I never went in it because my dad said that all the people that drink beer are not too good people.WM: So you didn’t drink…GP: No beer. Today I drink beer.LD: Did you ever have wine for Christmas?GP: Oh yeah, we made wine. We used to make it – we used to go down to 9th Street and buy fifteen 45-pound crates of grapes for 75 cents. And then we made wine.WM: Was this with your wife or with your mother?GP: No, with my dad.WM: What was the process?GP: Well you had to get the grapes. You had to crush them. Then after you crushed them, you put your hands in and move it. You gotta do that all the time so it ferments.LD: Did you crush them by stepping on them?GP: No.LD: You had a press? A crank?GP: A crusher.WM: How was the wine?GP: It was good. And then my dad made one barrel for the family and two barrels to sell. That would be 5 cents a bottle.WM: Now where did your family do their shopping – if you needed clothes or food?GP: Germantown.WM: Do you remember which stores?GP: I remember a big store.WM: Was that Allen’s?GP: Could have been, yeah.LD: Rowell’s? That was another store.GP: That’s another one. The name is familiar – Rowell’s.WM: Would you walk there or take a trolley?GP: No, we took a trolley. The 52.WM: You remember that coming down Midvale?GP: Yeah, when we got off the man in charge would give us 2 cents if we attached the pole.WM: Oh yes! Joe Petrone told us about that!GP: Yeah.LD: You changed the poles. It was up to a quarter by the time Tommy Doyle was doing it! (laughs)GP: Yeah. 2 cents….LD: Do you remember the ragman or the junkman coming around? And the milkman and the bread man? Did you mom order from them? Did you and Nancy order from them?GP: She did order some things. She would order some cakes for us already made.WM: That was a steep street to go up – Calumet – did they go on Calumet Street?GP: Yeah.LD: Did the huckster used to come with the vegetables?

GP: Yes he used to be there every day.WM: Do you remember his name?

GP: No.

WM: How about the river? Did you go down there to play?

GP: Yes.

WM: What did you do down there?

GP: Well, we used to put our feet in the water. We’d sit on the steps going down and then we’d put our feet in the water.WM: Any fishing? Didn’t kids used to go out to a rock by the Canoe Club and jump off?GP: Aw, yeah.WM: Were you one of those?

GP: No I was not a daredevil.

WM: How about Old Academy – were you in there/

GP: No.

LD: Do you remember a stable at the bottom of Calumet – a horse stable?

GP: Yes!! Yes! There was a horse stable there.

WM: Where was that exactly?

GP: Right at the end.

LD: Right on Calumet – Where the cleaner is.

GP: On the other side.

WM: Whose horses were they?

GP: I don’t know, but we used to rent them.

LD: You used to rent them and go riding on them?

GP: Yeah.

WM: Did you go to the Alden Theater?

GP: Yes my cousin worked there,

WM: Who was that?

GP: That was Mary Mondemore.

WM: She was the candy lady?

GP: Yes.

WM: I’ve heard about her. We need to interview her… what do you rem about the Alden Theater? Can you describe it?GP: The Alden was a nice place – there were some good movies. And Saturdays there were two features for one price.WM: What was that price?

GP: 12 cents.

LD: Wow.

GP: We used to see cowboys.

WM: I heard they used to give out dishes?

GP: Yeah, Wednesday nights they gave out dishes and you if you kept going to the movies, you could get a whole set of dishes for the family.LD: Do you remember any of the movies you saw there?

GP: Cowboys. Randolph Scott.

LD: The studios were over on City Avenue where they filmed the Cowboys and Indians. And the Cinderella show.WM: Did you say you would go across the river to Woodside?

GP: Oh Woodside was nice. We had a lot of fun there. There were some problems with the black and the white at that time.WM: What did you enjoy going on at Woodside?

GP: At the Woodside? The rides.

WM: Robert Connolly’s father managed the merry go round.

GP: The merry-go-round was beautiful.

WM: There was a crystal pool – did you go in that?

GP: Crystal Pool…

LD: Was there a roller coaster?

GP: Yeah there was a roller coaster.

WM: Do you have other memories you want to share with us?

LD: Do you remember a candy store on Stanton Street across from St. Bridget’s? Mudgies?GP: Yeah, Mary Wolf and her husband…

WM: Were there stores along Conrad when you were growing up?

GP: I think there were.

WM: Did they call it 35th Street back then?

GP: Then. Yeah.

WM: Do you remember when that changed?

LD: Do you remember the Breck School at all – before they built Mifflin?

GP: Yeah. They sure did.

WM: What did that look like?

GP: No different than any other at that time.

WM: Do you remember when they tore down any of the buildings – like the Falls Tavern?GP: Yes.

WM: You remember the Falls Tavern?

GP: Oh yes. Everybody knew that.

WM: I missed it – I didn’t live here then.

GP: You didn’t miss nothing…

WM: What was that like? What would you do there?

GP: If you liked to drink that’s where you’d wind up.

LD: Did not they have a back kitchen where you could order food to take out?

GP: Yes they did.

LD: On Fridays they would sell fish.

GP: Yeah. They were good! You’d get a fish sandwich. Oh it was really delicious! Oh my kingdom for a fish sandwich!

Laughter

WM: Was the post office on Midvale Avenue?

Yes. It was always – there was a problem because – it wasn’t like a post office – you walk in and go through these doors. It was cheap.WM: Friendlier?

GP: It was friendly but…but…

WM: Do you remember anything else around East Falls when you were growing up?

GP: I probably do, but right now I’m at a disadvantage.

WM: Ok. You’ve given us so much information, Gerry. So we’ll stop now and maybe another time well do it again. We really want to thank you!GP: When I feel better too.

WM: You were a real trooper to do this.

GP: Thank you.

LD: Maybe when you’re home again you’ll feel better and remember things you want to tell us.GP: I know that. Yes.

WM: Do you have any old pictures?

GP: Yes. I gave them to my daughter. She lives 200 miles in Gettysburg.

ES: Bob, I would like to ask you about growing up, where were you born, what section of the city?’

BF: I was born in Logan but grew up in Germantown. 1 went to Immaculate Conception grade school and I lived at 5342 Wingohocking Terrace. 1 had an older brother and sister, both of whom are now deceased. My father was Raymond and my mother was Kathleen Gallagher. I attended Northeast High School and LaSalle College and received my masters from University of Penn.

ES: Bob, tell me about your acting career. When did you become interested in acting?

BF: Actually the very first was in grammar school. We used to have a parish musical on St. Patrick’s Day, Minstrel shows, and I appeared in a couple of those. Then in High School at Northeast I was on loan to Little Flower and St. Hubert’s. The way 1 got involved in Old Academy was directly from that because there was a women named Emily Chinnery Pierve, who lived on W. Chelten Ave., in a big old house, and she took care of older people or something. In retrospect, I don’t think she took care of them too well, but she was a nice lady and she called us at school and was looking for actors for a play she had written. Fr. O’Connor sent myself and a couple of others from the drama group over to Mr. Pierce. She had written a play called “The Witch of Hogstown.” Again she was a nice lady but a bit eccentric. We were in awe because she told us of all these elaborate plans that were going to happen and that we were on our way to Broadway and we were excited because we were kids and we went into rehearsal for this show. I played Billy Hall, the all-American boy in “The Witch of Hogstown.” But at that same time she had also called Old Academy and several people from Old Academy came over to be in this play of hers. Two of them were, Jean Shaefhauser and Ida Smith, who was a Charter member of Old Academy. Delightful-woman, very short and so nice and she got us involved at Old Academy. This “Witch of Hogstown” never came off and she wrote a number of other plays. It sort of petered out because it became apparent that it was all in her head. She rented out to the Pennypack Theater, way up in the Northeast and we were doing plays up there. It was a dilapidated old theater with a hole in the roof and it was pouring rain and nobody showed up. No customers showed, so that was kind of the end of that.

I went over to Old Academy and I saw quite a few of their shows over there, but I was going to College the next year, so I got involved in the “Masque” at LaSalle, so 1 really didn’t do anything at Old Academy. It wasn’t until 1 got out of college that 1 joined Old Academy. I did shows at LaSalle, 1 did “Babes in Arms,” “The Male Animal,” “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” and ‘Winterset”.

ES: When did you join Old Academy?

BF: What year? 1957.

ES: Are you presently the longest continuously active member of Old Academy?

BF: Freda Gowling is.

ES: Bob, tell us about your first play at Old Academy.

BF: Well, I joined the Old Academy in January, 1957. The first show 1 was in was April. It was “The Torch Bearers”and was directed by Tommy Phayre and written by George Kelly. Of course, the Kellys had a big connection with Old Academy. The people here were very nice, the cast, Cece Jones, Ida Smith was in it too. They had done it twice before over the years and this was the third time they did it. They did a lot of the Kelly shows. After that the show right after that I was in was the first time we did “The Mouse Trap.” I was in that, it was directed by Cece Jones. Then the next season 1 was in “Mrs. Moonlight.” It was not one of our big successes. I acted in usually two or three a year.

ES: Tell us about the Kellys. You are speaking of the playwright here.

BF: One of his play was “The Torchbearers.”

ES: Did you do any other of his shows?

BF: No, actually that was the last time they did one of his shows here. But they had previously done “Craig’s Wife.” Years later they did “The Fatal Weakness” which had Pat McCauley and Don LeVine, who was Lizanne Kelly’s husband, were in that but they bad previously done “Craig’s Wife” and also several times they did “The Showoff,” the play that Kelly won the Pulitzer Prize for.

ES: Did you ever act with any of the Kellys?

BF:Yes, I was in “The Critic’s Choice” and Lizanne Kelly LeVine was my ex-wife in it. I was a theater critic, my current wife in the play had written a play and through my ethics decided to review it and 1 gave it a bad review. It’s a comedy. My ex-wife was the bitchy type who came in and decided to make trouble.

ES: Was her husband in that show?

BF: No, I was never in a show with Don, just Lizanne.

ES: Now, they both acted here?

BF: Yes, quite a bit. Lizanne. From early girlhood she was in “The Philadelphia. Story” and “Light Up the Sky.” After “The Critic’s Choice” she was in “Mary, Mary” and several others. Don did even more shows that she did. He was in “A Thousand Clowns” and “Sunday in New York,” “Come Back Little Sheba,” “Bus Stop.”

ES: Did they meet here?

BF:No. I’m not sure where they met. When they did “The Moon is Blue” together, they were still engaged. That was 1955, and that was the last time her sister, Grace Kelly was at Old Academy. She came to see them in that show. And this was just after she had won the Academy Award. She did take an interest in the club. She donated money and sent us a telegram thanking us for our congratulatory note when she won the Academy Award. Don came down once and said that Grace was at the house and really wanted to come down but her schedule was so tight that she really couldn’t. The Old Academy usually gets mentioned in her biographies, because this is where she started. They must have a real thing for her in Japan because four separate filming companies carne from Japan to film us along with other companies, a British Company was here as well.

ES: How did the people from Old Academy respond to Grace when she came back?

BF: Well, I wasn’t here then.

ES: Bob, I understand there was another famous actor at Old Academy, Robert Prosky.

BF: Yes, he just passed away a few months ago. He was at Old Academy for almost ten years. He came actually when he was still at Roxborough High School. He looked older than he was and they had him playing older parts when he was still in his teens. He did a bunch of plays here.

ES: So Robert Prosky acted here. Do you remember any plays that he was in?

BF: He was in ten, “Laura,” “Rebecca, “”Room Service,” ‘For Love or Money” and several others (from 1949-1955) He was a very good actor obviously. He went into the service and then he went down to Washington, DC, to the famous professional group there. He stayed there for 25 years. He was really a late bloomer as far as national recognition. He then went on to a career on Broadway where he had two Tony nominations. He went to Hollywood where he appeared in movies. He was in “Hoffa” the second filming of “Miracle on 34′ St.” He was in quite a few movies. He came back here and did a benefit a few years ago at Old Academy and he showed a retrospect of his career. We all did go up to see him when he was on Broadway, the last show he did on Broadway. A group of us went to see him last year at the Walnut when he was appearing in “The Price.” “Democracy” was the last show he did on Broadway.

ES: Did you go to meet Bob after the show?

BF: Yes, actually, when we were in New York he took us backstage, spent some time with us, introduced us to some of the other cast, including the fellow who played “John Boy” In the “Waltons” He was also in it. He spoke to us afterwards when we went down to see him at the Walnut in “The Price.”

ES: Bob, why do you think people stay so long at Old Academy and act in shows here.

BF: Well, we have had differences over the years. There have been feuds, people leave, but overall it’s a very family like feeling. People are made to feel welcome, there aren’t cliques like you have in some other groups and people develop great loyalty to the place. People come back years after they have moved away and when they are back in Philadelphia they come to Old Academy to see if there is anyone here that they used to work with. So it really is a homey atmosphere. We have “Life Members,” which means you have been a member for 15 years at least. We have a bunch of them. We owe so much to the first people who turned the “Moment Musical Club” into Old Academy. We named the group after the building. We changed it from the “Moment Musical Club.” They turned it into – this was the depths of the Depression – they took a dilapidated old building which was not a theater and turned it into a theater. Finances were extremely precarious for years and years. They had their ups and downs financially. Don’t tempt the fates – we seem to be in pretty good shape at the moment.

ES: Is there a particular instance that may have threatened the life of the theater to continue?

BF: Well, we have had several of those. One was in 1952, when a disastrous fire burned and destroyed the whole attic. It was because of faulty electrical wiring. The Fire Marshall forced them to replace the whole electrical system. It was 1952, and of course, the prices were much lower but there was over $ 10,000.00 worth of damage done at that time. It was right at the beginning of the season and they were doing a play called “Three is a Family” and so they only postponed it a week. There was a hole in the roof. They placed a tarp over the roof and managed to go on just a week late. There were other things too. As recently as the early ’80’s a letter went out because the insurance rates were so high. Our attendance was down and we almost faced bankruptcy. A letter went out to the members as an appeal. Fortunately, there was a good response and attendance started to pick up but we have had our ups and downs. We have also bad waning and waxing interest.

We are in a very fortunate position right now. We have a lot of wonderful directors. In fact, we have people waiting to direct. But we have had years when two or three people have directed all the plays. That makes the quality suffer, really, if you have the same people doing the same thing. They get tired and so forth. We have also had some really way up there things. We have had shows which were total sell outs, “Lady in the Dark, ” ‘Mary, Mary,” I think “The Corn Is Green” and more than several others that have sold out their entire runs.

ES: Bob what were your favorite acting roles? Is there a show that stands out as memorable?

BF: Well, I’ve been very lucky. In the course of my time at Old Academy 1 have been in 53 plays. 1 do have certain favorites. 1 guess my all-time favorite is “The Hasty Heart.” I played a Scottish soldier who is dying. It was a comedy-drama. I got to use a Scottish burr and it’s a beautiful play. I played Lachie. Also, “The Corn is Green,” a wonderful play and I enjoyed doing that. “The Matchmaker,” “The Fantastiks,” The play I just did was really enjoyable, “The Incorruptible.” I played an Abbot. It was a lot of fun. Also, “The Night of January 16,”“Separate Tables,” “Say, Darling.” I also did a few musicals which is pretty good. I enjoyed them.

ES: How many in all?

BF: 53

ES: Would you like to tell us a little “aside” about one of the shows you were in?

BF: Well, going back to “The Mouse Trap” which was the second play I did. If you are not familiar with it this, it is an Agatha Christie play which is still running for over half a century. It’s still running in theaters. It is set with a bunch of people snowbound, trapped in an inn in the country. In their wisdom, the production committee at that time chose to do the play in June. It was one of the hottest June in history. Everybody was bundled in these heavy, winter clothes. There was an actress in it named Esther Petri, who was playing Mrs. Boyle, a mean character, who is the first to get killed. Anyway, she comes in the room and she says, “Brrrr, who left that window open?” And a man in the audience yelled “Leave it open, Lady.”

ES: Are there any other anecdotes or asides?

BF: This comes to mind. I won’t name names. We did the show “Anastasia” about the woman who claimed to be the lost heiress of the Czar. In the show, she and her- supposed grandmother, the Dowager Empress, are going through the Romanov family picture album, looking at the various pictures to see if she can recall anything. She does and doesn’t. In any case, we borrowed the album from two members, so the two woman were sitting on stage it was, Phyllis Rogers and Ruth Ely and they were going through this book and looking at the pictures and very, very intense and out of the audience came this shout: “That’s our album,” said the mother of the donors to the father.

ES: Bob, could you tell us about your job as second vice president of the Production Committee?

BF: Well, this is my third go round at this job. I had it for five years at one point and a couple of years at another point. Right now, I have had it since 1992. Our job is to select the season, cast the parts and get people to produce the shows. The producers are then to get a staff. They have to get people to build the set, get the props, do the lighting, do the sound, do the prompting, all those jobs, so it is an interesting and rewarding job that has gotten more difficult in later years because there are fewer plays coming down. Years ago, Broadway had lots and lots of straight plays. Now they are heavy on musicals and they don’t do that many straight plays. So if we can we try not to do too many repeats.

The only reason we do repeats, perhaps once a year, is because we like to give younger people a chance to do parts that they may have been too young to do originally. In any case, this makes us go out sometimes and have to do plays that never played in New York, so we don’t know too much about them. We have to get them in, read them, a lot of them turn out to be terrible. But some of them tum out to be gems. The playwright today is not as lucky as the earlier playwrights. Once they had a career and make a hit in New York, they were set. But now, a playwright will have to open a show in some residential theater in perhaps, Nebraska. Then he has to do it again in Alabama and again in Arizona. It’s not the same thing; we have to select the plays and we try to balance. Old Academy has always been and still is, without apologies, sort of “middlebrow.” We hopefully don’t go for the typical high school play but we also don’t go for the avant garde, way out sort of play. We are still a little prudish. Some of the older members would turn in their graves if they heard some of the language used on our stage now, but compared to what other people do, it’s very mild.

ES: Could I ask you about some of Old Academy own playwrights?

BF: Oh, yes. We have been very fortunate. We have two right now, very gifted playwrights. One is Nancy Frick, currently the president of Old Academy. The other is Barbara Weber. We have done four of Nancy’s original plays to great success. We have done three of Barbara’s. To prove it wasn’t just nepotism, Nancy’s plays have been done by a bunch of other places as well as ours. Barbara has had her plays accepted into the Baker Collection, this is like Dramatist or French’s where people go to their catalogues to choose their plays and her plays have been done in Texas and other places.

So we have launched two and we have had other members who have written plays. We have actually rejected some of the plays by other members because we put them to the same standard of quality. Every play cannot be a Pulitzer Prize winner, but we have a certain floor. If you wanted to grade it, we don’t want to do anything less than a B minus. That’s as low as we want to go. We don’t want to do any C’s and certainly not any D’s or F’s. Hopefully, as many A’s as we can get. Not that many A’s are coming down the pike so we have to choose. We try to balance. Our audiences do like Comedy. We try not to underestimate our audience. If we give them good drama, they enjoy it and like it. Sometimes word of mouth helps in that regard. Something can start out slow. In fact, we have wonderful word of mouth on the last play we did, “Wrong Turn at Lungfish.”

I also handle the ticket reservation. So many people called in about the show, bow good they thought it was. In the last few years, the quality of our shows has really gone up. It’s been noticeable and reflected in our increased ticket sales. We are selling better than we had been for a while.

We have theater parties that we sell to outside groups for a flat sum and they sell the tickets for what they can. We sold them to different church groups and so forth. We also have reserved seats for our season ticket holders. This gives you the exact same seat for every show. We have floaters where you can call in for each show and pick the seat for that particular show, at a discount price, of course. In looking over the history of the place, we have now close to 200 season ticket holders. At one time, we were up to, I think the highest was 448 season ticket holders. That was in the days when we only ran for 2 weeks as opposed to 3 weeks as we do now. We also sell theater parties, we perhaps sell maybe 12 now. At one point, when we ran for two weeks, we were up to selling 26 or 28. There are several reasons for that. I’s not entirely our fault. We used to get theater parties who would buy the whole season. Lions Clubs, We had the Bala Lions would come to every show, The Olney Lions, would come to every show. We had the North Penn Lions. Many of these fraternal groups have either disbanded or are much less active then they use to be so we have lost all that.

We’re in the Falls and the Falls is prospering and doing very well. Most of our people use to live within 3 or 4 miles of the Old Academy. The season ticket holders also lived within that radius. Demographically speaking that is now not so. We get cast members and season ticket holders from New Jersey, Bucks Co., Montgomery Co., Chester Co., Delaware Co. – even northern Delaware. That does lessen the number to a degree, because people have to come further.

It has also, cut into our social aspect, to a degree. We have an actress in an upcoming show who lives in Princeton. When people live that far, after rehearsals, they really have to get home because they have to work the next day. But in the old days, there was a lot more conviviality in that regard. People at Old Academy used to hang out at Cranes in Germantown, which had a great bar. It had great food, very reasonable and all their drinks looked like doubles. After they went, people went to Imhoff’s which we sort of turned into our personal cocktail party. Imhoff’s left the place open to us. We had an ex-president who was a regular there, so much so, that she had a seat at the bar. She had dinner there every night. The stamina of these people was amazing. They often closed the place and then went to work the next morning, if they didn’t stop at the American Legion Place or someplace like that afterward. Not too much of that goes on now. People are better behaved.

ES: Bob, what has it meant to be a part of the East Falls Community? The fact that this theater began in East Falls, how did that help it or deter it and how does the neighborhood effect it today?

BF: Old Academy was originally the “Moment Musical Club” which was founded in 1923 at the Falls Methodist Church, which unfortunately, closed its doors a few years ago. But in any case, when they came to the Old Academy building, in 1932, and did all this work and they have been a real part of this community ever since. We have been real lucky and are grateful. The East Falls Community Council has given us many grants for which we are appreciative. But on the other hand, we have been here since 1932 and we continually find people who live in the Falls who still don’t know that there is such a place as the Old Academy Players. They have never been here. Not only have they never been here, they have never heard of us. This is kind of hard to believe after all these years and all the efforts we have done with publicity. One thing, of course, is we are on Indian Queen Lane. There is not much business on IQL, so people are not driving down it. We drew most of our early members from East Falls, now we draw from just about everywhere. Members come from a 30 mile radius. East Falls itself has done wonders. There has been such a Renaissance in this place.

Next door to us for years was the Young Men’s Association which was a private boys club. It wasn’t affiliated with any other boys club. All the boys in the area for years and years went there, but it sort of petered out by 1970. It went out of business. They offered the building to us for a dollar. We took it. It gave us a whole new other building to store things. It gave us an area which evenuial1y we were able to convert into a parking lot, which is one thing the Falls lacks is parking. It was in very, very bad shape. We have spent lots of money and lot of effort and lots of sweat equity in the place. Right now, it was built in the 1850’s. Like this building itself, built in 1819, it requires constant upkeep. We do now have an apartment in the upper floors, so we are receiving revenue from this apartment. We use the back for rental for wedding receptions, birthday parties, showers, etc. We did have a lot of help in refurbishing from Sherman, a contractor and builder in this area. He did refurbish the floors in Carfax, which is what we call the place. He put in new windows and so forth. The name Carfax is interesting. We were doing the show “Dracula” and Dracula’s residence in England was called Carfax. On the condition of the building, we started calling it Carfax and that is what it is still called.

Actually, the Old Academy building itself, back in 1941, there was an addition put on the back of the building. This is the original building, but this addition gives us an additional staircase and space out there. That was built with a donation, in 1941 it only cost us $2400.00 to build it. The Old Academy took out a loan which was backed by people for $2400.00. John B. Kelly contributed $1 ‚000.00 and Hohenadel, who owned the local brewery up the street from Old Academy contributed $1,000.00.

ES: Could you read from some of the entries from the Minutes that you compiled?

BF: These are just a few examples of how tough they had it in the beginning. Here is an entry from 4/3/34, “$1.25 in the treasury.” On 4/17 of that year it had zoomed up to $20.91. But by September, they were back to $1.44. This was the depths of the Depression. In 1936, on August 18, they “had a new ceiling on second floor completed. Painting and redecoration will follow. Fall season will resume giving fall length plays suspended during the Depression in favor of several one-act plays.” For several years, to give people more for their money, they only charged .50, they would do three one-act plays instead of full length plays. In 1936, they came back to their original policy.

Here is an entry from 7/5/1938: “Season tickets proposed. $8.85 in the treasury, $60.00 in bills.” They always did very charitable stuff, in fact, it is part of our charter which we haven’t lived up to as much as we should. This is from 10/1/40, “a motion was passed to give $2.40/week for milk to needy children at Mifflin School. Christmas cards to be sold at the fund raiser.” From that same level in that same year 11/5/40,” members are contributing .1 5/week for children who are refugees from the European war. Christmas cards proceeds will go for staging. A benefit will be given for the Young Men’s Association.” They gave to lots of benefits. During the war they were very active. They took shows to Camp Dix and the Naval Hospital. They sent candy and things to make blankets for the different places. We had one member, Bill Bender, who was killed in the war. They really did a lot. They had benefits for the air raid groups that were around here at that time. One interesting thing during the war. This was 8/13/42 suggestion: “Cast women in male parts because of men going to war, defeated.” Fortunately!

ES: Bob, how are you keeping the history? Do you have archives?

BF: That’s a sad story. A few years ago, Patricia McCauley, Liz Logan and 1 got all the old programs, the old minutes and so forth, and put them in the office in Carfax. However, that office is not usable at the present time because the floor is collapsing. We have to have that floor done. We don’t even have a computer at this point, which is sad, in this day and age. They are in there, but the newer stuff we really have to regather. Fortunately, on the computer there are a lot of things that are not erased which we can get off. People have things on their own computers. I have a lot of things on my personal computer. Copies of old Prompters which we could update. We have a history of Old Academy from 1933 up to 2001. I’d like to update that to the present, by going through the minutes and gathering them from the various secretaries, which isn’t always easy and from old Prompters.

Another interesting thing is we had a meeting of our trustees, who are the custodians of the building for the interest of the people of East Falls. It was built in 1819 and given to East Falls. Everything happened here, all the churches, shows and libraries and that sort of thing. From Gar Emmert, who had gotten it from his mother, Ruth, who had gotten it from Dave Budenz, a member of the trustee, we have a copy of the original charter, from 1815. It’s fantastic and we have the minutes all through the 19 century of the trustees of the Old Academy building. It is fabulous and it is something we want to preserve. 1 think it’s wonderful, and if Old Academy comes to an end, as everything does sometime, that sort of material could go to the East Falls Historical Society, so that there would always be a record that there was such a place as the Old Academy.

Joe’s remarkable memory offers the reader humorous and detailed memories of his life spent in East Falls.

LD: This is Wendy Moody and Lyda Doyle from the East Falls Historical Society interviewing Mr. Joseph Petrone, Sr. at his current home at 83 Tiller Drive in Waretown, New Jersey. So, I guess we’ll start with the basics – when and where you were born?

JP:I was born in Doctor’s Hospital on Summer Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

on October 6, 1943 and the bill was $32.

LD:And where were your parents born?

JP:My mother was born in Lyons Falls, New York and my father was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in East Falls.

LD:And what house did you live in when you came home from Doctor’s Hospital?

JP: I lived in Lubinacci’s house on Stanton Street which would be probably 3663 or 65,

down the street from Roger ess’s store.

WM: What brought your parents to East Falls?

JP:My father lived in East Falls, on the 3600 block of Calumet Street with his brothers and his cousins. Two sisters married two brothers and lived in that house for 72 years.

JP: I would imagine the one on Queen Lane. It was like in the 1850’s, I guess.

WM: And where were their parents from?

JP:From Italy. A town called Anzi, down in the arch of the boot. Up in the mountains

there. I thought it was Anzio, but it’s Anzi, the name of the small town. It’s a mountain town.

LD: Are you currently married?

JP: I’m married to Kathleen Hine Petrone and she’s from Kensingson, but I won’t hold that against her.

LD: And how many children do you have?

JP:I have twin boys, Joe Jr. and James Anthony, and a daughter Heather Alicia Petrone. I have three children.

LD: Currently you’re retired, is that correct?

JP:Yeah, currently I’m retired. I still dabble in real estate with my daughter. Technically, you would say I’m retired.

LD: What kinds of jobs did you have growing up?

JP:I guess the very first job was working on the merry-go-round in Sea Isle City, New Jersey as a job-job and I got paid with free rides, until my cousin Patty came down after here mother died and they sent her down to live with us and she put us on strike. We struck the merry-go-round and ended up settling for 25 cents a night. But he cut out the free rides.

So that was my first job. Then I worked on the pier in Sea Isle City selling bait. And then I worked with my dad when I was about nine. I painted houses. And then I got to clean the poolroom – my father owned a poolroom in East Falls – that was a social gathering place.

LD: Where was that?

JP: Well, it was originally where McIlvaine’s Funeral Home – in the basement where they do the bodies? That was the pool hall. Upstairs was the dance hall where my father and another guy ran dances.

WM: Was it the Young Man’s Literary Institute?

JP:I think that’s what it was. Yeah, that’s what it was called. And then somewhere in the ‘50s we moved down to what was called Roach Road, or River Road, behind what was an Amoco gas station, which now is the Sunoco station. On the second floor.

And I remember Moon Calarazo moved the pool tables with his dump truck and we had to put them up through the window. So I worked the pool room every day after grade school – I would go down and clean the pool room and carry fuel oil from the gas station to the heater which was a kerosene heater, and shine the balls, polish the tables, and clean the floors, get it ready for another night and that was the job. And I got five bucks every two weeks.

WM: About what year was this?

JP:Oh, it had to be in the fifties.

WM: And what kind of people came to this pool hall?

JP:Everybody. All the young men, it was strictly men, there weren’t any women. If anything, they’d be calling on the phone trying to find their husbands. Because there were card games in the back and numbers were being taken. I guess you could call it a

seedy place – it was – it was just a place to get out of the weather where guys would gather and shoot pool and talk. And then they would go off from the poolroom, they would travel to Reading or Atlantic City or something to do other things. It was the

social center. It was the East Falls Billiard Academy and that way they could discriminate against who walked in there – you had to be a member. You had to be voted in, that was one of the things.

They would play cards in the back room, and if the guy didn’t like what was happening, he would throw the cards up in the air and when I came in there might be five decks of cards lying on the floor, and I would pick them up. I was the only kid in grade school that had 150 decks of blue ribbon cards.

WM: How did you eventually get into real estate?

JP:I went from working with my dad on the jobs – they were the only jobs that I ever had, and then along came the Air Force when I was seventeen years old. So I went into the Air Force at 17 and I more or less grew up in the Air Force.

When I came out of the Air Force, I had an electronics background so I went to work for a telesystems corporation which installed cable systems all over the country. Back then, cable tv was just a way to get a signal into a small town. You didn’t get any television stations. I never thought there was any future in cable television.

So at the time I got married to Kathyand we decided that I should go to college, which I thought was the craziest – me in college. So I started going to night school and eventually the G.I. Bill came along and we made a decision for me to go to day school and get it over with, because Kathy had a job and we really didn’t need a lot of money at the time. So I started going to day school…

WM: Which college?

JP:LaSalle. LaSalle University. And I decided I should get a real estate license.

I started working for the City of Philadelphia in ‘72 at the Housing Authority and I decided real estate was the thing to do, because I was in housing. I took courses and became a salesman. Matter of fact, it was with a black realtor on Allegheny and Germantown Avenue, which is kinda funny – as I go along I’ll tell you. He let me

get my license there.

Then I hooked up with a guy named Bernie Meltzer. He used to have a radio show and he wrote columns for the Bulletin. He was like the big soothsayer. And I wanted to get involved more in the business, and he sort of like kept me at arm’s length and he took another kid along and I was a little upset so I left him and started my real estate brokerage business in 1975 in East Falls. I rented from Joe Michettifor $60 a month for my two room office. Joe Michetti was the one who gave me my first haircut when I was a kid so it was kind of neat. And that’s how I got started.

Then, in the City I went from the Housing Authority to the Mayor’s Area Manpower Planning Council and I was running a group of job developers to get jobs for people because unemployment was, oh my God, 7%. It was horrible. There was a lot of money coming up from the government and we were using that to get jobs for people.

LD: That was the ‘70’s?

JP:That was the 70s. Then in 1979 I went to work for the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation as a real estate director, and I was searching people down that had abandoned their houses and I thought I should be more in real estate then. I kept looking for a job in real estate and that’s when I found PIDC and they picked me up.

I stayed with them till – I went over to the city to see Frank Rush, who was from Germantown – he used to be a State Representative – he was a politician. He was the real estate director for the city.

I asked Mr. Rush “Can I have a job here in real estate?”

He said “There are no openings – people don’t leave here unless they die” and then he laughed at me. He said “You can have my job – I’m going to retire in 10 years.”

I said “Ok.”

And he said “Oh you’ll never get this, kid, you’ve got to be political and gotta have all this…”

And I said “Just let me know.”

Ten years go by, and I noticed in the paper they had appointed a new real estate director by the name of Paul Deegan. And I said “Son of a gun.” So I called and said “What happened? I didn’t see the job posted or anything”

And they said “Oh, the job wasn’t posted – they appointed him – he’s a political appointment.”

I said “Ah, nuts.” So I went to a reception that Mayor Goode was having. I said I might as well go around and introduce myself to the new guys – now I’m a political placement too. My situation was political. So I ran into a guy who shakes my hand and says “I’m Paul Deegan.”

And I said “You son of a bitch. You took my job.”

And he smiled at me. I said I’m going to like this guy.

And said “I didn’t take your job. I was appointed. As a matter of fact, I’m going to fill that position. We need a real estate manager.”

I said “Can I…?”

He said “I can’t do anything for you but I’ll tell you when the test is.”

I said “That’s all I ask.”

So I took the exam and came out number one. And then I took the verbal – there was a verbal board – this is funny, because a fellow working for me at PIDC was the ex-real estate director that had retired and came back in as a political appointment. He had told me a story about the firehouse on Samson Street – about how it burned. The firehouse burned down! And how they had to redo it – and he was telling me all these stories about it.

The next day I go for this interview with guys from New York City and other cities that they brought in to form a panel. And they said we’re going to give you two things – we’re going to give you a piece of real estate to study and we’re going to give you a rental situation. So they hand me a package and I go in the room and open the package up and it’s the firehouse on Samson Street. The one I just got all this information on. I said “God wants me to have this job.”

I mean I went out and knocked their socks off. They couldn’t believe the information I had. I was only talking about it the day before. I knew the numbers, I knew the figures; I knew everything. And they looked at me and said “How do you know this?” And I said “Because I’m the best there is.”

So they send me into the room with a rental package – it turns out it’s the building I’m in! 1234 Market Street! At the time was PDIC and I knew everything about the building because I was in the building! And I said “God wants me to have this job!”

And I also had Veteran’s Preference which put me – well, Deegan told me this later, but his boss was black – the head of Public Property was a black guy named Sykes.He was trying to get his friend into my job. His friend couldn’t get around me because of my grades in the test and everything. So Deegan says, “Well, who do we have? “We got this guy Petrone.” “Can we work with him? He said “Yes, I think so. “ So he said “Hire him.” And that’s how I got the job

It was a miracle, right. So the first person I called was Frank Rush in Florida – he retired to Florida.

He says “Yes?”

I said “This is Frank Rush from Philadelphia?”

“Used to be.”

I said “This is Joe Petrone from Philadelphia.”

He said “I don’t talk to anyone from Philadelphia anymore.” I said “I got your job.” It was like putting the silver bullet on…

“You got to be kidding me!”

I said “I got your job, Mr. Rush.”

He said “You are persistent, aren’t you!”

“Oh, I told you, I just needed a chance.” It was such a great feeling.

I said “Can you give me some advice?”

And he says, “Yeah, don’t ever do a deal without having someone there

with you.” Because of all the ramifications.

I said “I’m coming to Miami next week for a convention with the city. I’d like to stop to talk to you. Maybe you can help me”

He says “Anything you want. You come on by”

He died the next day. It was amazing. So that’s how I got into real estate. I eventually became civil service, which is the job I took the test for, and that’s how I retired out of the city, as a top real estate official of the city. It always amazed me. I’d walk out at night, look around at the city, and pinch myself and say “Not bad for a kid from East Falls.” I did that. I really did. I just never thought I’d get to the top – in a million, zillion years, but it was up to Kathy and my mother-in-law – they sort of pushed me. That’s how I did it.

But I stood at Convention Hall, and I’m looking around at everybody standing around in their caps and gowns, and my young cousin is standing next to me, who graduated with me, and I said “I can’t believe. I can’t believe it. It’s such a thrill.”

I also had a general contractor who worked for my dad in the ‘70’s. I had that company. I also had a manufacturing company that manufactured fishing equipment that Penn Reel wanted to buy from me. I talked to them about taking over my line. I eventually sold it to a guy in Maryland. So that was my manufacturing company I had.

I sold Fuller Brushes. I was one of the first Amway salesmen. I still have the kit – it cost $10. The first sales kit for Amway. I was an Amway Representative. I was a sales representative for things you would get – like pens, pencils, buttons.

LD: And didn’t you work in summers up in Hazelton?

JP:No.

LD: At DeSoto?

JP:No, Hazelton – our family is in Hazelton – Uncle Jim and Uncle Joe and Grandmom and Aunt Rose – we would ride up to Hazelton to see the family. And Aunt Mary had a soda factory – it was named Hazelton High. I would sit on the production line and grab the sodas…

LD: So you were actually working there…?

JP: No, I wasn’t working there. I was sampling the goods. I think Aunt Mary had a poolroom too; she had a couple of pool tables in the store. But I remember Hazelton is not too many memories. I went down in the mines with Uncle George – took me down into the coal mines. And I remember putting tools together to go in the coal mines because, to me, the coal mines were down in the dark place. They must have been like the cellar in the house. So I took a monkey wrench with me and a flashlight. And I could envision hot water heaters and house heaters down in the mines – that’s my idea. We had a machine in the backyard – you would crack the coal with it for the house.

LD: In East Falls?

JP: No, in Hazelton. Across the street in Hazelton was the company store for the coal mines. And it was right next door to a gigantic strip mine – it was just the most monstrous hole in the ground I had ever seen. I remember they had a toy steam shovel for sale. But they would take you out into the woods – they had bonfires in the woods and weenie roasts – that were a big entertainment thing.

WM: Let’s get back to East Falls, because you’re second generation and have so many memories of the neighborhood. So can we start by getting some memories – things your parents told you about Falls or anything you remember about their growing up?

JP:My father was the youngest of the family. And he was quite a character. My Uncle Tony was dating my Aunt Fay and they were trying to save money to get married. So when Uncle Tony would park his car, not to use gas or anything, and they would be walking along the Ridge at Midvale and they would see his car go by. And Uncle Tony

would say “God, that looks like my car!” It was my father – he stole the car and was out running the gas up. My father was a character.

One time they came and nailed a sheriff notice on my grandfather’s door, ok? For the sheriff to sell the house. And my grandfather said to my father “What is this, Roque?

He said “Oh dad, it’s an honor. The city is honoring you. This is an honor.” Well, my father had signed a bill at Penn Athletic one night for dinner for everybody, being a big deal. Well, that’s what they were after, for the payment for the dinner. And they took the house to sheriff’s sale. Well my Uncle Tony got home, now my Uncle Tony being the smartest of all of them, he told my grandfather exactly what was going on and my grandfather certainly got into a lot of trouble over that. That was one his shenanigans he got into.

WM: What school did your father go to?

JP: He went to St. Bridget’s. Then he went to Roman. Oh, all through my life it was “Oh you’re going to go to Roman. They’ll straighten you out!” My God, I’m going to get to Roman and they’re gonna beat me and flog me! And then he went to St. Joe’s on a scholarship to be a doctor. He didn’t last too long there, so he dropped out of St. Joe’s.

And then he worked at the Navy Yard under an admiral as an expeditor for parks and things. Because he was working there, they didn’t take him into the service, because he was working at a defense job. And then Mr. Daily, who was Judge Daily, a magistrate around 22nd and Indiana, taught my father to paper hang, so he became a paperhanger.

That was technically his trade, was being a paperhanger, and running the pool room, and writing numbers, so… He did just about everything and anything – things were tough in the ‘50s in the recession. In the Eisenhower years, things were a little tough. Everybody in the neighborhood worked for my father painting. Sometimes you would go to a job, there would be 10 guys on the job painting. Everybody painted to make a living.

But Happy Morello was his partner in the pool room. Morello was a big family on Stanton Street.

WM: Did he know the Kellys?

KP: You have all kinds of Kelly stories…

JP:Oh yeah, he was very friendly with John B. Kelly. Mr. Kelly had a golf association. Dad was involved with the gold association which was up over Pete’s Bar. They used to meet up there. And dad used to row in the early days. And Mr. Kelly gave me a golden oar from the Henley Regatta from his son when he…And I had that for years and years. I kept it in my cigar box with all my marbles and all my things. I don’t remember who I gave it to, or where it is, but Mr. Kelly gave it to me at the Benford Club one day. Dad would take me to the rowing club on the river. Upstairs at the bar, I remember behind the bar there were oars like in a tournament thing – all these beautiful oars. Mr. Kelly gave me an oar.

WM: What was your impression of Mr. Kelly?

JP: He was a nice man. He was a strong looking man, his hair slicked back. But dad

would do the painting and papering up at the house for them. And dad would go through the front door with his paint bucket walking up the steps, spilling paints all over the floor with Mrs. Kelly running behind “You son of a bitch! You’re spilling paints on my steps!

We did the nursery on the top floor for Caroline, when she first came over from Monaco. We painted the nursery blue. I said to Mrs. Kelly “Why are you doing this blue?” She said “I like blue.” So we painted the nursery and she came over the first time into that nursery.

We also did the LeVine house up on School House Lane. We were painting the house because the Prince was coming and they were going to have a reception.

WM: Which house was the LeVine house?

JP:It’s right past Netherfield Road. There’s a ranch house right there. I’m trying to remember who bought it. That kid, Michael Young?

WM: Judge and Eileen Lynn lived in the corner of School House Lane and Netherfield.

JP: In a brick rancher?

WM: Yes.

JP: That’s the house! It has the pool? That’s because we painted the pool! She said “What did you do?” My father said “Ah, it looked shabby so I painted the pool! He painted the pool! What kind of paint did you use? It was pool paint. Daddy asked for an invitation to the party. They said “You’re not going to the party!”

I remember the butler – the driver – the driver’s name was Shorty. A short black guy and he had a raspy voice like Rochester. But they were nice people.

And the upstairs bedroom, if I remember, has a measuring thing on the doorjamb for the kids. And I understand the people have left it there. They didn’t touch it; it’s still there. I remember seeing that.

WM: Any special impressions of Grace?

JP:Ah! I was in love with Grace. It had to be “53 or ’54 at the most that Mrs. Kelly was very heavy into the hospital and they had what they called the Rose Carnival. And they would have a carnival in the front of the hospital there, where the circle was, and they had a forklift with a bucket on it and the kids would use as a forklift and would shake it – it was a big thrill.

And they had all these matronly ladies from Germantown that would come and work at the carnival – they would sell at tables. And my job was to ride in the back of a Buick convertible with Grace Kelly and sell chances to the Rose Carnival. And we would ride through East Falls with a speaker, and a guy named Tony Minesol, I think, was the guy that ran things. It must have been from Minesol Furniture?

But I would sit in the back with Grace, and they would walk along with the car – the thing would be blaring and people would be selling the chances. And I would sit there and just gawk at her. And I was in love with her. I was maybe eight or nine. She was just very pretty, and she was just a princess. She wasn’t a princess, she was a beautiful person at the time; she was an actress. That was my thing with Grace Kelly. And Humphrey Bogart came to the house one day to visit.

And one day at the Rose Carnival I was working a table with an old lady from Germantown and I was blowing balloons up. And somebody brought a compact over – a gold compact – and said “Oh Grace gave you this to sell.” It had engraved Grace Kelly on it. It was hers. And it was like five bucks. Five bucks was a million dollars in those days and I wanted that so bad, so bad. And I didn’t get it. I remember that. But she was a beauty.

LD: So where did you yourself go to school?

JP: I went to St. Bridget’s.

LD: Do you remember what the school was like? How many kids were there? Were you in the old building?

JP:Yes. The first day I met Tony DiStefano, whom I’m best of friends with today. He comes for breakfast over here. John Ruddy, and Jerry Roushe. We all met outside the old school.

WM: And the year was…

JP: Well I went to Roman in ‘57, so 8 years back from that.

LD: So the new school wasn’t built yet?

JP:Oh yes, the new school was built. What we were doing – we were given jars and every family would put money in the little jar. That’s how it was built with money from the parishioners. My sister was in the new school. Third grade on was in the new school.

First and second grade was in the old school. And in the first and second grade in the old school – we had like four people to a seat. It was so crowded; there were like 72 people in a room. We had these long benches that went behind the wrought iron desk and we were jammed. It was really crowded.

I wrote a story about it. We had a load of nuns and every day there would be a procession of the nuns coming up from the doorway across the schoolyard, marching.

The first lay teacher didn’t come till later. She was pretty.

LD: They were coming from the convent to the school?

JP: Convent to the school. And I would go back to the convent and sit in the kitchen

and the nuns would give me cookies and all. The real old nuns were in the kitchen. We lived in the Lupinacci house until ’49.

WM: Was that the Lubanacci that moved next door to me, the florist?

JP: No, Mrs. Lupinacci. That was her house that was rented to my father and mother. That was the son next to you, Lucky Lupinacci.

WM: What was a typical day like at school?

LD: Did you have recess?

JP:Yes. Recess was in the schoolyard. We just ran around and acted goofy and told stories and everyone settled in with their own friends in a corner.

KP: Under a tree was popular when I went there.

WM: Did you go home for lunch?

JP:You could go home for lunch, yes. Some people did go home for lunch. Some people brought their lunch. We had what was called a lunch program. It was government surplus food. It was terrible. It was cans of spinach from WWII with cheese and stuff.

The lady who cooked it must have been diabetic. She never put salt in it. It was terrible. Then Mrs. Connody came along, my buddy’s mother and she made the food worth living for. You either packed your lunch or you would pay for your lunch or run home for lunch.

They would ring a bell and when the first bell rang you froze. Whatever you were doing, you had to freeze on the spot. And then the next bell you would march over and get in line. It was like an Army.

KP: It was an old school bell and my kids used to get a hold of it.

JP: Do you want me to read this to you?

LD: We’d rather have you talk about things that aren’t in it.

WM: We’ll add this paper to the interview.

JP:My sister was in third grade and I was in first grade and every time I got in trouble it was like “Why can’t you be like your sister?” And then they’d haul my sister out of her class because her brother was misbehaving. She hated that.

Then we would take piano lessons for a quarter a lesson. I took lessons for about 50 years and couldn’t play anything.

LD: Were the lessons in the convent?

JP:They were in the bottom of the old school and then they were down in the convent.

There was like five pianos down in the convent in the basement lined up. You would go in there.

WM: Do you have any memories of St. Bridget? Anything interesting that ever happened there?

JP:I was in altar boy school and then I found out that altar boys had to wake up at 4 in the morning. And I said “Uh, uh, not for me.” So I flunked out of altar boy school. I was the first one in history to drop out of altar boy school. To this day, I can still say the Latin.

But then again, my buddies were going away with the priests on the weekend and I thought that was kind of weird. They would go up to the mountains.

LD: Did you make your communion and confirmation at St. Bridget’s?

JP:Yes.

LD: And there were processionals?

JP: Oh yeah! Beautiful processionals. There was a May Queen. A girl would be chosen as May Queen and she would crown the statue out in front of the church on Midvale Avenue – she would put the flowers on it. And we would sing.

We would have the Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras was a big celebration in the auditorium. It was games and dinner and entertainment. Mrs. Marascowould sing. She had a beautiful voice – she was a big entertainer. And the Morrells – Mr. Morrell was like the President of the church. He was the main man. Mr. Morrell was in charge of getting things done. Everyone would look up to him; he was like the mayor. And there was a load of Morrell boys and they lived side by side on Stanton Street.

KP: Right across from the school.

JP:And I would be walking down the street one day and doors would open and like Mario and George would come out and start tumbling in the street and start punching and biting each other and scratching each other. And I stood there and I’m saying to myself “They’re brothers! Why are they doing that!” I didn’t have any brothers. I had four sisters. And I couldn’t imagine – “Is this what it’s like to have brothers? But the Morrell family lived next door to each other forever – they’re still there, I guess. What’s left of them.

WM: Were there any other school traditions besides the Mardi Gras?

JP:Oh yeah.

KP: …how about the lines leaving school?The rich and then the very rich…

LD: The up-street line, and the down-street line…

JP: You couldn’t break it until you were across the bridge and then you could break. You marched up the street single file.

WM: Was somebody leading you?

KP: Usually the nuns.

JP: And there was a Safety Patrol. It was a big thing to join the Safety Patrol. Tommy

Knox was the captain of our Safety Patrol. The guy who ran for Mayor? The multi-millionaire that you hear about? Tommy Knox was our captain. He had a bunch of brothers.

WM: Who was Principal when you were there?

JP: I forget that. I remember Sister Rosalita.She loved the boys. Boys could do no wrong. Girls were always in the wrong; the boys were in the right. Sister Rosalita – she was a doll. Sister Helen Marie – they called her bulldog.

LD: Did they have Bingo?

JP:Yes. They had Bingo.

WM: Tell us about living in East Falls. Shopping…can you describe the shopping district?

JP:We shopped at Caldwell’s store on Conrad Street which was next to where my real estate office was. You would go up there and buy your meat for the day.

WM: Near Epicure?

LD: No, closer. Closer to Ainslie.

JP: Yes, right next door. It’s a duplex now. That was Caldwell’s store. And they were butchers. You’d go in there and they’d have meat hanging up in a butcher locker and they had potatoes and onions and all. And they had toilet paper on the top shelf. You used to catch a thing and grab it and push it down.

And there was Love’sstore up on Sunnyside. And then there was the Green Corner – that was a store right at the railroad tracks.

LD: Indian Queen Lane and the railroad tracks.

JP: There was a store on the 4000 block of Ridge Avenue that I own now that was – big Italian family – Joe Caruso’s. And there was the store at the top of the bridge there – which was Caruso’s – and there was Caruso’s in the middle of Calumet. And there were stores all over the place. And then on Conrad there was an Acme Market store on the corner of Bowman and Conrad Street – there was an Acme Market store! That’s where the apartments are now – one was a paper grants (?) and then on the corner was the Acme Market. But we didn’t have shopping centers. We didn’t have giant supermarkets.

Acme was the first one, then A & P came along.

LD: There were a lot of drug stores…

JP: Oh, drug stores! There was Katzie’s was at the corner of New Queen and Conrad Street. And there was Love’s on Indian Queen Lane and Vaux. And then there was the Tilden Drug Store. And there was Doc Cedar’s store down on the Ridge.

LD: And wasn’t there McDermott’s at Sunnyside?

JP:McDermott’s was a candy store at Sunnyside and Conrad and he was in partners – it was Joe Fitzpatrick and Mr. McDermott. They were partners. And one would run it one week and one would run it the next week. And we used to sit there and read the comic books for free. “This is no library, you know!” But I was friends with Joe Fitzpatrick,

who was his son.

WM: What else do you remember about that store?

JP:It had three telephone booths in it, in the front. It was a nickel for a phone call. It had a soda fountain – an old soda fountain. They would fresh-pack the ice cream into containers. And of course they had copy books, pencils, and penny candy. We’d drive the guy crazy – I’ll have one of them – no, I’ll have one of those…

WM: A woman sent me a story about that store and picking out her candy…

JP:Yep, that’s it. Penny candy. It went into a little brown bag that he would put the candy in.

KP: What kind of ice cream did he sell? Was it Breyers?

JP: I think it was Dolly Madison. And he hand-packed it.

KP: It would drive him crazy if you couldn’t read – asking him to read all the flavors.

JP: And Bob’s had Breyer’s. Bob’s was where the deli was, where the Hindu guy just opened up. That was Bob’s and he sold ice cream in there. And that would be hand-packed too.

WM: And where was Fiedler’s Pharmacy?

JP: Fiedler’s Pharmacy was on the corner of Ridge and Stanton. The Victorian on the corner.

WM: Now where would you go for clothes?

JP:You’d go to Len’s at the bottom of Bowman and Cresson Street. You’d go with five or six dollars and you’d get a brand new pair of Lee’s jeans, a shirt, and a pair of sneakers, and a buzz haircut and you were set for the summer. He was a Jewish guy. Very nice, wonderful man. He took care of the neighborhood. He would box it.

WM: Was it where the Italian Club was?

JP: Right across the street. They tore it down. He donated it to the East Falls Sports Association. That’s how he left. He donated it and he retired. He was a nice man. He was a gentleman. He was a really nice man.

LD: He kind of looked like Lawrence Welk.

JP: Yes, he did. He had pepper hair. He liked my father. He talked well of my father.

He never treated you like a kid. You were the customer.

KP:When you left the store though, after you bought the new sneakers – I remember this when I moved into the neighborhood because all of the lines along that street were just tons of sneakers…

JP:You’d throw your old sneakers up – that was a rite of passage.

WM: What other kinds of stores were in East Falls?

JP:Well, you had Len’s for clothes, you had Katzie’s for pharmacy – or Mr. Fiedler. You had all the little grocery stores.

WM: Was there a florist? A shoemaker?

JP: There was a florist down on Midvale and a jeweler there – Kay’s Jewelry was down on Midvale. And there was a photographer across from the church. He did most of the photography…

WM: Was that Brownworth?

JP:No. It was another name, but he was across from the school.

LD:It wasn’t Sieger was it? I think that might have been Roxborough. Wasn’t there a lingerie or women’s store at the bottom of Eveline and Ridge?

JP: There was a furniture store – Minesol’sFurniture.

LD: That was on the other corner, but I guess you wouldn’t have shopped for women’s clothes

JP: There was a firehouse and an undertaker across the street. And there was a gas station on the corner and next to that was the Blue Star Restaurant. Every Greek restaurant was called the Blue Star Restaurant.

WM: Where was this, on Ridge?

JP: On Ridge, heading east. There was a giant hardware store on the corner.

WM: In Palestine Hall?

JP:That’s where it was, and upstairs was Odd Fellow’s Hall. And across the street there was this Amoco gas station. I have some 8mm movies…

LD: Now wasn’t there a Catholic shop beside the hardware store?

JP: There was something there like that.

LD: A religious store.

JP: And there was a barber shop – Arrera’s barber shop – next to the Greek restaurant and then there a break, and then there was the old Falls Tavern back off from the street.

the Falls Tavern. And the back escape steps from the poolroom – we’d run back out there when the cops came in the front.

KP: All his relatives – the older ones – had their functions there. There were lots of pictures people passed around.

WM:I wish I had been in the town to see that. What other restaurants were there?

JP: Well, down by Scott’s Lane – Scott’s and the Ridge was another Greek Restaurant. We used to go in there a lot. My father liked his coffee piping hot. And the bar was called Pollack’s, on the corner, which became the Catfish or something?

LD: The Catfish Café.

JP: And that was called Pollack’s. That was a bar with beveled glass windows.

LD:Wasn’t there a Chinese restaurant somewhere near Ridge and Midvale?

JP: No, they served Chinese food on Friday night at the Falls Tavern. That’s where I learned to shrimp chow mein. Because we were Catholic – you had to have fish cakes – but along came the Chinese who saved us with shrimp chow mein.

KP: Quinney’s?

JP: Quinney ’s? She wasn’t talking about bars…Quinney’s was a bar on the corner of Conrad and Ainslie Streets which was across from Tilden Pharmacy and the Tilden Food Market. Quinney ’s Bar, on Friday night at the back door, you could get seafood out the back door – crab cakes and a bag of French fries. And Rosie would be in there making the seafood: ”And what can I do for you tonight, lad?” (said in Irish brogue). She was lovely! She was as big as me, and her and her girlfriend were in the kitchen back there and they made the fried crab cakes. They smelled of the crabcakes and the fries. For 25 cents you got a bag of French fries. My mother would send me up to get some French fries.

KP: I thought she had really good clam chowder.

JP: I don’t remember that, Kath. I don’t remember the clam chowder. I remember the crab cakes and the French fries and I remember the smell of stale beer, and they had a ladies entrance on the side. If you were a lady you had to go in the bar by the ladies entrance. My uncle was our front getting loaded every night – my uncle Jim Kelly. He would stagger out with Mr. Dean. Mr. Dean would go down Ainslie and Uncle Jim would walk up.

WM: Where would you go for a dentist and doctor?

JP: The dentist was on down on Midvale Avenue next to Pete’s Spaghetti House. There was a dentist in there. And there was a photographer studio in there. Pete’s Spaghetti House it was called – it was a bar. Pete Mazzio had a Thunderbird convertible – he used to drive around in a little two-seated convertible. He was quite a handsome guy. He was quite the ladies man. Pete’s Spaghetti House – Joe Caruso was the bartender for years. He married Betty Caruso. He lived in my mother’s house when he first got married – a lot of people started in my mother’s apartment in her house.

WM:What was your dentist’s name?

JP:Oh, I don’t remember that. Doreia?

LD: Was Dr. Fiedler your doctor?

JP: Dr. Fiedler was my doctor. He lived across the street from my mother.

WM:What was he like?

JP: Oh he was great. He was a little stiff shirt –little official. His father was the pharmacist. They called Doc Fiedler, the pharmacist, was called Doc Fiedler. When you got hurt you’d go in there and he’d fix you up

LD: They were brothers.

KP: Were they father and son or brothers?

JP: Father and son.

LD:Wasn’t Fiedler’s Drug Store and the doctor brothers?

JP: No, no,

LD: Didn’t he have another brother that worked in the drug store?

JP: There were a lot of Fiedlers. Some of them were in trouble.

LD: But as stiffshirt as he was, he did make house calls.

JP:Oh yeah. But I mean he was very official. He wasn’t one for a joke or anything.

LD: Very straight laced.

KP: One day my dog was having puppies and one got stuck and I made him come over to the basement and my mother walked across the street and he helped me get the puppy out. It wasn’t his usual duty.

JP: I met, next door, Mrs. McCarthy who had little cats. (jumbled…) So I dipped the cats in the paint cans. I colored the cats – I painted the cats!

LD:Your dad had a work car. Did that double as the family car?

JP: Oh yeah. My dad always had a station wagon because he needed it for his business, for his tools. And that was always the family car too.

He coached the East Falls football team and he would haul the cheerleaders around in the back of the car, getting paint all over their cheerleading outfits. He would back out of the driveway and crash into the tree across the street, like every day.

WM:On Calumet Street?

JP: On Ainslie Street. He had a ‘56 Chevy station wagon and he would back out and hit the tree. And it got so we had a case of lenses in the garage and he would change the lenses when he hit the tree!

KP: It took about 30 years to kill the tree.

JP: The tree was totally imbedded with red glass from my father hitting the tree. So I turned 16 and he takes me out for my first driving lesson. I put it in reverse. I hit the tree. Now any other father would have gotten upset but he turned to me and said “Chip off the old block!” and we drove away. I hit the tree; I couldn’t believe it!

LD:Now if you wanted to go to Germantown or anything did you drive?

JP: The 52 trolley, which was like a dime at the time, or you walked. Ok, you walked.

WM: What would you go to Germantown for?

JP: Germantown had everything. Lit had Allen’s, it had Rowell’s; these were two big department stores. It had all the stores. It was a shopping – it was like Frankford Avenue. In Philadelphia, you had an attitude that you shopped.

KP: Germantown was big shopping all the way up to…?

JP: So out closest shopping districts – you either got on the train and went to town, or you went to Germantown.

WM: If you went to town you’d have to take the train?

JP: You’d take the train to town to Reading Terminal. It was wonderful for a kid – all kinds of smells and sounds, thousands of people. And in the train station itself they had huge model trains there in cases. They were beautiful. They were works of art.

And then you went down the escalator and there was Horn & Hardart’s and you got a custard cup or a cup of beans. Or you went to the automat – you put the nickels in – it was a wonderful place!

And then you went outside to Market Street and the guy was selling fresh chestnuts – roasted chestnuts right in front of the Arrow Shirt Store next to the Reading Terminal. And then you went to Snellenburgs and Wanamakers and Gimbels and Lit Brothers. Your mother would haul you all through these stores. We had an aunt who worked in Snellenburgs, ok, and she was a menta – that’s another story –but Aunt Frances was one of those ladies with the fluffy starched white thing with the watch which would hang off…

KP:A maiden lady.

JP: We’d go downtown or you went to Germantown.

WM:Would you go anywhere by bus?

JP: Well, East Falls had a lot of transportation. They had the 61 which was a trackless trolley that had electric – the pole went up but it was a bus with tires. We called that the African Queen because that would take you right up through north Philadelphia and that was its nickname. It went down Ridge Avenue and go through the deepest part of North Philadelphia.

Or you would take the Z bus, which was a little bus that navigated the hills of Manayunk and Roxborough and would take you to Erie Avenue and you’d get the subway at Erie Avenue. Or you’d take the A bus to the Franklin Institute and the Art Museum and would end up around City Hall – that was the terminus for the A bus. And then the 52 trolley, which was the real trolley car on tracks, would take you up to Germantown.

LD: And the turnaround was Ridge and Midvale.

JP: The turnaround was at Ridge and Midvale and we would run out and grab the pole – pull the pole down – and go to the other end and put the pole up so the trolley could go in the other direction. And the conductor would throw us a nickel or a dime. The sub-conductor would curse at us because he didn’t want us to touch it. But most of them would throw us a nickel or dime and you’d run into Hatchers bakery there and play the pinball machine or buy a doughnut. That was right there.

WM: Do you have any memories of the old train station?JP: Oh, at the bottom of Ainslie? Oh yeah. The train station had a potbelly stove in the waiting room on the other side and we would go in there as kids and feed the potbelly stove. Of course the trainmaster would come across and chase us.

Edna talks about “Methodist Row” on Sunnyside, being a homemaker, and medical care – with details about Ms. Dunn, the local midwife.

CS: Why don’t you tell us when you came to East Falls, You weren’t born here correct?

EW: No that’s right.

CS: So when did you come?

EW: I was born. I was born in Upstate Nichols region. I’ve uh….

CS: Newspaper I think.

EW: I don’t get the newspaper.

CS: The Review!

EW: Yeah the Review! Well now see I can’t remember dates clearly. Can you remember back like that, like that?

CS: It doesn’t matter about the exact date anyway, just about approximately when you came here, when your family came.

EW: Well it must have been 19…uh…1920…1922.

CS: Uh hum, and how old about, were you at that time?

EW: When I came down? I was married that’s when I came down…I was married when I was 19, when I was 21.

CS: Uh huh, so you were married when you were upstate?

E: Yeah, I was married upstate.

CS: You came down with your husband?

EW: And I came down here. And I was 21 when we were married.

CS: And what was your husband’s name?

EW: Willy Norman Wooley.

CS: Uh huh, and why did he come…what brought you to Philadelphia and to East Falls?

EW: Well he was born, he was from Philadelphia.

CS: Uh huh.

EW: He was from East Falls.

CS:Uh hum.

EW: And uh it, it was a seashore romance.

CS:Aww (laughs) Well tell us about it (laughs)

EW: And I had a relative that lives here in the Falls. I had visited in the different times. And, but I never met him.

CS:Umm hum.

EW: But I met someone that he knew. And we were on one of the boardwalks of Wildwood. It was night. It was a Saturday night, no a Sunday night and we were walking along and I saw this group of boys that I had met before – previous, and Norman was with them. But I didn’t know him so I spoke to one of the boys and of course they all, you know how they gather around and laugh. And we were having fun and one of them said, “Well come on let’s go, there was a fire. Let’s go to the fire.” We didn’t know where the fire was but we was gonna go see…

CS:(laughs)

EW: …where the fire was. And Norman, Norman grabbed a hold of me and we went, but we didn’t go to a fire we went to a movie. And I had…

CS:(laughs)

EW: …Never been to…it was a Sunday night, I never been to the movies on a Sunday that was a mortal sin!

CS:Oh no.

EW: I would never go to a movies on a Sunday.

CS:(laughs)

EW: So that was the beginning and uh we, then we were married the following uh…April.

CS:Uh huh.

EW: That was is August and he was down on vacation, had 2 weeks’ vacation and in August, last 2 weeks of August and uh that’s when we married up in April. So you see he was getting tired of running back and forth.

CS:Yeah.

EW: You know the train (laughs)

CS:Expensive too.

RE: Edna was the prettiest bride I ever saw and her husband the handsomest. They were a very, very beautiful couple.

EW: Yeah he was nice looking. My husband was seven years older than me.

CS:Uh huh…When you came back down here had he already purchased the house or rented the house?

EW: We rented an apartment down Strawberry Mansion. He did, ‘cause his parents, mother lived down there and his sister. He lived there with them his father had died and he lived there with them. And he looked around down there and then he write back, “I got an apartment for us” and that was it. And it was up over a grocery store. Sam’s Grocery Store. Yeah. And we got the furniture – we came down shopped over in, in a German not the Upper Germantown, Germantown Ave. Germantown Liberty High.

CS:Uh.

EW: It was a big furniture store down there. And we went over there and brought our furniture and we picked it out.

CS:Uh huh.

EW: And it was all set you know.

CS:And how long were you in the apartment before you came back to Falls?

EW: We weren’t there very long. What year did you say you came here Ruth?

RE: The houses were built in 1926.

EW: Well we came. We rented a little house in the Falls. And my parents were unhappy with where I was living. They weren’t pleased at all.

CS:Why was that?

EW: They just didn’t think the house was very nice.

CS:Uh hum and where was that located?

EW: On Sunnyside Avenue (laughs). So these houses were being built all around here. This was, this was a field and…

CS:And you lived on Sunnyside Avenue?

EW: I lived on lower Sunnyside.

CS:This, this was a field.

EW: That wasn’t a field; this was a field, that wasn’t. And they started to build these houses and we got the bug. And then we would buy and so…

CS:Do you remember the selling price?

EW: Yeah sure. They were only what? $6,000; $6,500 I think.

RE: $6,950.

EW: Can you believe that?

CS:No.

(laughs)

CS:Were there many people on the block when you moved in?

EW: Oh, this was called Methodist Row.

(laughs)

EW: Wasn’t it Ruth, Methodist Row? There were Methodist next door. Methodist up…oh! All the way up, Donald McKenzie, his wife. They called people across the street Methodist. Methodist Row. Yeah.

CS:Were they mostly Falls people or were they…

EW: They were all Falls.

CS:All Falls?

EW: Oh yes, they were all Falls people. Uh huh.

CS:And what church did they attend?

EW: Methodist in Falls. Methodist Church that’s down on Queen Lane, right down below the (indistinguishable)

CS:Is that were you attended as well?

EW: Yeah I still go there. Um hum.

CS:Okay. Um how long after you, you moved here did you have your children?

EW: I was we were married seven years before uh we had one…7 years.

CS:And where…was that baby delivered? Here in your home? Or was it…

EW: No, it was up in a house, the woman she was a nurse.

CS:Um hum.

EW: And her name was Ms. Dunn and she rented this big house up on Henry Ave and she just took in women that were expecting – were gonna have babies. So I had laid my guide (?) and made my time. Told her, you know, about the time I would be delivered and she delivered my baby. I didn’t have a doctor.

CS:Uh huh.

EW: The doctor didn’t get there.

CS:Oh.

EW: And the…

CS:Was the doctor supposed to get there?

EW: Oh yes, he knew ‘cause we called. I woke up through the night and I went to the bathroom and I couldn’t stop.

CS:Oh! (laughs)

EW: Couldn’t. So I called Norman and said there’s something wrong and I explained it to him and he said “Oh, we’ll call Dr.Empresol. And so we called him and he said, “Well you go; you better get up to Ms. Dunn’s.” We didn’t go to the hospitals as much then as we do today. Today everybody runs to the hospital right away.

CS: Uh hum.

EW: For everything I mean, I mean for each little thing and we didn’t. We went there and she had been up all night. She was still in her uniform and all. Norman walked up with me and it was around midnight.

CS:And where was her place located?

EW: Right around the corner, right on Henry Ave., right where they vote today, right next to the little voting… eh the polls. It’s a little shack there.

CS:And what cross street would it be?

EW: Its, its… it would be right up to Ainslie and Henry.

CS:Okay. Um hum.

EW: And so that’s it. And the doctor, and when the doctor came it was all over. He never got there ‘til, I don’t know what time, it was all over.

CS:(laughs)

EW: So in fact Ms. Dunn wasn’t there she was so busy that a woman had to come in and she had miscarried and then another girl came in and she had twins.

CS:Oh my!

EW: Yes and Ms. Dunn went off to help her and she left me in a room with the children ‘til she got in the other room a bed ready for me. The other room she just kept storing supplies in. And so finally she got the bed ready and, but I was too ready.

CS:(laughs)

EW: And I got up and I knew something was happening, I, it was the first and I know you know, and I just took the shoe. She wasn’t around I was the only one there. It was me and the people in the other room, a great big front bedroom. I think they had 3 or 4 beds in the front bedroom. And uh….so I took my shoe off and I hit the floor and she came up, around 2 of them coming up, and she looked at me, “Oh my”.

(laughs)

EW: You know, and I said… so she fixed me all up. There wasn’t a problem at all nothing. She took care of it and he was born and that was it.

CS:Were all these people who were having miscarriages and delivering and everything, was it just Miss Dunn and no doctors?

EW: No, there were….they might have had a doctor but my doctor never got there.

CS:Yeah yours didn’t, but did the other ones not have doctors?

EW: I don’t know. I don’t know if they had a doctor or not. I suppose they did but I happened so quick that, you know well he should’ve been there. He should’ve been there. The fact that he told me to go up he should’ve been there.

CS:Uh huh.

EW: And he wasn’t.

CS:Were the women, the other women where there were they coming from a surrounding area? Not those particular women. But did women from this community use that or…

EW: Oh yeah.

CS:…all over?

EW: No, they were just the people that lived around here ‘cause she was wonderful, wonderful nurse. And throw in Mrs. Webster. She had her son up there too.

RE: Oh didn’t she marry Webster?

EW: Yes.

CS:Oh can you describe what Ms. Dunn was like? Just to prove her personality and how old she was and what she look like.

EW: Oh, oh I imagine she was…she was lovely, and oh, so gentle, so kind she must have been uh in her 50s.

CS:Um hum.

EW: I would imagine, I never thought about age at that time, but I would think she might’ve been in her 50s because she didn’t go out she just stayed in this house and, and had her patients. People came right there, and they were just having babies.

RE: What did she charge?

EW: I don’t remember what she charged. Wasn’t much I don’t know if it was $50 or whatever.

CS:Well how long were you there when you had a baby?

EW: Till I was discharged. I wasn’t there long. I wasn’t there long. I doubt if I was there a week.

CS:So she took care of you while you were, you know?

E: Um hum. Yes, yes, she put me in the other room with the women, with the other women. I went in there.

RE: My word.

CS:And where would the babies stay? Did she have a nursery or did the babies stay with you.

EW: The babies had a little room to themselves. They had their little cribs in there and when Dr. Empresol came later when….When he came I said “I don’t know what you’re doing here.”

EW: That was that. And tell me when I hear of, you know I get when I see things on television how they perform, you know, women who have babies and their screaming and carrying on. I said oh that’s, that’s unbelievable, that didn’t happen like that at all. But I was one of the first I, I guess that I had an easy birth.

CS: Yeah, uh huh.

EW: I hadn’t any pain. Only thing hurting me was my back.

CS: Do you remember….was Miss Dunn around for quite a while before you were, before you delivered?

EW: Oh yes, she was up there for a while. I don’t know for how long really, but she was there for a while, maybe several years and I don’t know… Why I think she died. She just died had to give up.

CS: Did she do any of your prenatal care?

EW: No. I didn’t have-

CS: Did you go to the doctor?

EW: It wasn’t prenatal, just the doctor came once.

CS: So your, during your pregnancy you didn’t have any?

EW: No.

CS: You didn’t go every month like they do now?

EW: No. It was nothing.

(laughs)

EW: In fact my next door came up the very next, I think the very next day and she said, “I didn’t know you were expecting a baby.”

RE: I don’t know how they did it, but they could hide it in those days.

E: I didn’t hide anything. I didn’t wear a special garment or anything. I wore smocks like the paint, you see the painters you know? What they wear. I wore a smock and that was it. That was all. I didn’t do any-

CS: Did they have maternity clothes then?

EW: No. They didn’t. I had one dress that that I wore. And I got sick of it, that I wore it all of, you know, when I went out anywhere. But it had a little….ah, bolero thing like in the front and ah, it just covered- went down over and covered it. And she didn’t know, my next door neighbor. So uh….

RE: I lived near there and didn’t know.

CS: Was it just you didn’t talk about your pregnancy? Did you not talk about your pregnancy?

EW: I don’t think they talked…they didn’t talk about it as freely as they do today.

RE: I did, but then again I was always a mover and a shaker.

EW: But then people today they come out and talk….but there were so few.

RE: I remember sitting on the porch with Ms. Humwood and she would say, “Oh see that girl coming down there she’s in the family way.” And there was always so much discussion about whether people were in the family way or not. That’s when I suspected that I might be pregnant. I quickly went around and told everybody “Hi, I’m pregnant.”

CS: So nobody would-

RE: So they couldn’t surmise or decide whether I was pregnant.

EW: Well I lost the first one I was pregnant before.

RE: Oh you were?

EW: Yes, but I lost that.

RE: Oh.

EW: But I had a miscarriage and it seemed a long time, you know, seven years and after that there was one operation after another. There was no more, no more children.

CS: Did you nurse your baby? Most people nurse their babies then?

EW: Yes.

CS: How long did you nurse?

EW: Yeah. Yeah. Well I nursed ‘til I was told he was starving.

(laughs)

E: And uh, I would…I couldn’t believe it ‘cause I had so much. Really I had so much milk and, I had gone on home. I had taken him up with me and uh my folks up there said that, “That child is hungry.” He’s not getting enough to eat; I don’t know why. I had plenty of milk. Well I came home took him to the doctor weighed him. He said because,

before you go home, the doctor called the drug store. Do you remember Hall’s? Drug store was located down on, they used to call it 35th street, and there’s a – it’s a store there – but it was a drug store. It was Hall’s Drug Store. He said you stop there and you buy the bottles, but he said give him milk right away. “Don’t make a formula”, he said really starving.

CS: Did he cry a lot?

EW: He like most children that haven’t fed; he’d be crying. And I didn’t…you know the way things are today, girls run to the hospital. They would have known right away and, ah, I didn’t know, so when I came home I just gave him some milk. I warmed it and put it in the bottle. He never had a bottle not even orange juice. And he grabbed that bottle and boy did he down it.

CS: And how old was he then?

EW: He downed it.

CS: About how old was he? 5/6 months?

EW: He was, yeah, right. And from then on he blossomed. But I had a hard time. I had a rough time drying up and that. That was terrible. That was more painful than having a

baby. And Mary Webster came in, she lived next door, and she came in and used a pump. And of course if you used a pump to much it fills up again.

CS: Stimulates it again.

EW: Yeah.

CS: So you weren’t nursing at all then.

EW: Naw, uh huh.

CS: Yeah, that would be hard then. What was your social life like as a young married woman?

EW: We had uh, groups that would meet. We had uh, maybe 3 or 4 couples and we meet at one another’s houses. You know Mr. and Mrs. Buckley. You know you remember Jim Buckley and Ethel. And my husband was there; they had a group of men they use to call it the Arcanun Club.

CS: The what club?

EW: Arcanun.

CS: Can you spell it?

EW: A-R-C-A-N-U-N.

CS: Uh huh, what’s that?

EW: Well I don’t know but that’s what they call it. And these boys were all from the Falls. And they would go, when they were younger, they would go on camping trips and things like that. And they just continued the habit to meet once a month. But the wives, the husbands and wives would get together, you know? But we were much involved in church: we sang in the choir; I sang in the choir and my husband sang in the choir. And we were involved in that. And of course when we had time to on weekends we would be going upstate, going up there visiting my folks. And we sing. We’d like to play the piano and sing.

CS: Nobody had cars much?

EW: Not that many. Mr. Buckley. We didn’t have a car then, but later we did get a car and then I think my father brought a new one and he gave us the old one. And Bruce said, my son, “Why didn’t he give us the new one?” That would be Bruce.

CS: What kind of car did you get?

EW: It was an automobile. But then when that played out we got a Chevy and I think no…we got a Mercury. And that was a lovely car; we were in the money then. We got a Mercury; it was a lovely Mercury and ah when that, when we decided to get rid of it we decided to get a Chevy.

CS: What kind of…What did your husband do?

EW: He was a jeweler. Manufacturing jeweler – he made jewelry.

CS: And where was his place of business?

EW: He worked, last time he worked he was at Caldwell’s.

CS: And when you were first married?

EW: He worked for another man – a man who made a lot of a school like school pins, college pins, and rings. They don’t seem to have them much anymore. He had worked for this man years and years.

CS: Not in Falls?

EW: No, in Philadelphia down on Chestnut Street., 1022 Chestnut Street. I can remember that.

CS: How did he get to work?

EW: First he used to use the train.

CS: The train that came-

EW: Uh yeah, East Falls. They had a nice train station down there, at East Falls Station.

CS: Down by (indistinguishable) Street.

EW: He’d choose that, and then when the bus started to run up here then he’d use that. He didn’t use the train.

CS: Do you have recollection when the bus started to run?

EW: I can’t remember the year. Ruth, can you remember what year? ‘Cause you don’t ride buses, you don’t know about buses.

RE: No I did. I always used the train.

EW: I don’t remember, but see Norman he used to use the bus to go to work and it was convenient for him. He didn’t have to walk up and down this hill. He came home at night, you know? But I don’t know really how long they been ah…running there a long time.

RE: I use to use the 61 on Ridge Ave. to get to Center City and the 52 on Midvale Ave. and then transfer down to the 61 on Ridge Ave which took you to Center City.

EW: I only got on the train; I never got on the 61.

CS: Did you ever after you were married have a job outside of the home?

E: Unh- uh (No), I was always being told to go get a job, not by my husband, but by my folks, use to say that “Why don’t you go get a job?”

CS: And why was that?

EW: I didn’t want one.

CS: Why did they tell you that?

EW: I don’t know. They said, “Why don’t you?” because I had worked for an attorney it was a legal job.

CS: Before you were married?

EW: Yeah, and I think because it was strange. See I knew people up here, I knew everybody up here. I didn’t know anybody up there. But here I would have to…. I would be altogether different working for …for someone down here. I just couldn’t get myself to do it. You know he, he was easy going. And he didn’t ever say go out and get a job.

CS: Did most young women work?

EW: They didn’t. There wasn’t many women working then not like it is today.

CS: Can’t you describe what your day was like at home?

EW: Work, work, work. Cleaning windows, scrubbings up in the paint. It was work, work, work. We always do work. Very busy, busy, busy. I don’t know when I think of it now, I don’t know how I did as much as I did do. When you’re young like yourself you can do a whole lot more – the young vital and can get around better. But I had many stories….

Born in East Falls, Rose gives a detailed account of working at Dobson Mills. She also describes her house on Sunnyside, St. Bridget School, and local stores.

CS: We’ll start off if you want to tell me your name and when you were born.

RW: My name was Rose V. Welsh – my marriage name is Whitty. I was born July 27, 1899. Is that alright?

CS: That’s fine. So, you just had a birthday.

RW: Yesterday, no, on the 27th

CS: So how old does that make you?

RW: 82

CS: 82 years old. How long have you lived in East Falls?

RW: All my life. My mother before me. She was born in 1868 on Laboratory Hill – Powers & Weightman’s estate. My grandfather lived here from 1828. He came from County Mayo, Ireland

CS: And that’s how the family came?

RW: They were all born and lived in East Falls.

CS: What brought your grandparents here? Was it work?

RW: Work.

CS: What kind of work were they doing?

RW: Well he was in Powers & Weightman’s and I suppose he did something prior to that. He came 16 years old. My grandmother was 15 when she came.

CS: Were they married at the time?

RW: No, they married here, in Philadelphia. My mother’s people lived here for years and years. And they all had large families.

CS: Were you trying to remember something?

RW: I’m trying to think what I say next.

CS: That’s ok. I just didn’t want to cut you off. Did you say you were born on Laboratory Hill?

RW: My mother was born on Laboratory Hill in 1868. I was born on James Street which is now Stanton Street, on July 27, 1899.

CS: Now that’s not considered Laboratory Hill, right?

RW: No, it’s a street. Laboratory Hill was demolished and the Projects is over there –Falls of Schuylkill Project.

CS: Were they the homes of people who worked for the Weightman family?

RW: Yes, the chemical plant, and they had a school there for the children. And she started first grade there, but then she went down to the old yellow school house. [sounds like something was skipped here] and he was a railroad engineer. West Falls on the Reading Railroad. And they had 7 children, I am the second youngest and I am the last living member of the family.

CS: Oh really? So all your brothers and sisters…

RW: All brothers and sisters and parents and grandparents, and only one cousin living, she’s 87. And, I have one niece living. I only had one niece. I had a nephew, but he died. But she’s living in Florida. And, my nephew died in Iowa. So, as I said that leaves me the last living member. There are lots and lots of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. There are still some of them in the Falls. My mother’s name was McHale – Rose McHale. My father’s was James Welsh. My father was born on the street-Sunnyside Avenue—3522, in 1860, and he was married out of that house. My mother was living on Stanton Street with her father directly opposite the new school –the old school entrance – Stanton, now. We always called it Jimmy Street for James Street.

CS: Why did they change the name, I’m just curious?

RW: I don’t know, they did that to a lot of streets in Philadelphia. Now Ainslie Street back here used to be Spencer, er ah, ah, Fairview Avenue. And Calumet Street used to be Spencer Street.

CS: In your life time?

RW: In my lifetime. When I was a child, I used to go visit my uncle who lived there and this James Street and Spencer Street were after a man in that book, James Spencer, when they were early settlers here. And then, ah a lot of the streets have been changed. Arnold Street used to be Elizabeth Street, I think. A lot of them have been changed in modern times, you know. And then, let’s see, I went to school at St. Bridget’s.

CS: Now, were you, to go back a little, were you born in your father’s home here on…?

RW: I was born in my father’s home on Stanton Street.

CS: On Stanton Street?

RW: My grandfather also owned a home on Stanton Street. Right across from the old school main entrance. I was the only one born on Stanton Street, some were born on Calumet and my youngest sister was born on New Queen Street, 3556.

CS: Now how did you get over to this house?

RW: My father died in 1902, and then the year after, my mother bought this house, 3513 Sunnyside. And in 1944 I bought this house.

CS: No wonder you’ve been here so long.

[missing section here]

RW: But he comes to visit me every year and in the spring in the spring and winter he comes alone. So, he’s just been here in June.

CS: How old did you say this house was?

RW: It was built in 1874. There were eight of them. That’s what my deed reads. They were all built at the same time. My mother was born in 1868 and she was 6 years old when she saw these houses for the first time. A girlfriend, a schoolmate, bought 3515 and she ran over to see the new house and then years later, we bought 3513.

CS: Did she ever say how much they sold for then?

RW: Why they were built for $2500 in 1874. And she paid $1900 for hers, but it was in very bad condition and she had to remodel and do a lot of work to it in the same way I have done a lot of work, all new plumbing work.

CS: Did they, were they built with plumbing?

RW: Well, they had no bathrooms, and they had no heaters. They had holes –there were chimneys here- holes in the bedrooms if you want heat in the summer, I mean, winter when somebody was sick and ah, it was 1918 people began to remodel them and put bathrooms in off the back bedroom and put heaters in.

CS: Why around 1918 was it about then that they started to remodel?

RW: They didn’t have the money to do so.

CS: But after the war…

RW: After the war they, they had bought Liberty Bonds during the war and after the war they cashed them in and remodeled their homes. Most of them did that. I know my mother did. We bought Liberty Bonds and after the war in 1918, she started remodeling. She had all this broken out and open the staircase upstairs. She fixed the stairs and she had the heat put in and a bathroom put in and electricity –all in 1918. No one had electricity. We had gas. Prior to that we had oil lamps. Our streets used to be cobble streets.

CS: I didn’t know that.

RW: And they paved over them.

CS: About when did that happen that they paved…

RW: Not so long ago, since I’ve been in this house and I came in it in 1944. I remember the day they paved over there. They coated all over with black tar and in a day or so I remember all the kids from the neighborhood were out there with their bicycles and everything because it was so smooth.

CS: I bet after those cobblestones it was great.

RW: But, ah, that’s just since 1944.

CS: I ah, something came to mind, this wasn’t it, but maybe it will come back to me. When do you first remember locking your doors, when you thought you had to keep your doors locked?

RW: We used to go to Cape May every summer, and we had, and I still have, shutters all over these houses. They’re solid shutters on the first floor and slat shutters –moveable- on the second floor and no shutters on the third floor. And when we went to Cape May for many years, all my mother did was shut those slat shutters on the second floor and turn them down and opened the window about that high. Of course we locked the doors. We always locked our doors.

CS: Even when you were home.

RW: Oh, no, they were always open.

CS: Do you do that now?

RW: I lock mine. When we’d go to the store, there would be screen doors on, but I can’t remember when we started locking them, ‘til this violence started. Every place I go, I lock the doors. I do leave the windows open when I just run next door. We lock everything now at night. I lock everything up when I go sit on my porch. Is my voice carrying?

CS: Fine, it picked up beautifully.

RW: I can’t remember what we were talking about. All that you heard about the men coming around selling the crabs and all, I remember all that.

CS: The street vendors, but that’s not what you called them, you had another name. The hucksters.

RW: The hucksters. That was the men that came selling produce and on Friday they sold fish. And the grocers and all the storekeepers would go down there to the wharf at 2 o’clock in the morning for all their products and fish and everything. And then a couple – three or four families – had a huckster business l and they came around right to your door, in front of your door, and you would run out – you knew the time they were coming. And the grocers would come to your house in the morning and take your order and bring in back – maybe in less than an hour sometimes. And the grocers and the businessmen used to have a picnic at Willow Grove once a year and we would go on trolley cars. And we’d go out to Willow Grove and the families would take their family basket with them and then during the day, at certain hours, they’d distribute free food, like ice cream and lemonade. And then we got so many tickets to ride the amusements donated by the businessmen.

CS: Here in East Falls.

RW: In East Falls, yes. And ah, the stores all closed on Wednesday around here.

CS: All day?

RW: All day Wednesday. That was for them to go and order. I think they closed all day but I might be mistaken on that. They would go down and order all their stuff from the wholesale houses. Nothing was delivered to stores, only bread, later on bread was delivered. Nearly all opened by 5 o’clock in the morning.

CS: The stores did?

RW: Yeah, cause my mother, the mill started at 6 o’clock and mothers would go out and get buns and breads when the stores opened. There were all kinds of stores. This Conrad Street every store you see now was owned or rented and there would be maybe the same kind of business in the same square, the same block.

CS: You mean they would cluster certain businesses?

Yeah. We had fish houses, oyster houses, dry goods stores on Conrad Street and we had ice cream stores right across the street, all kinds of stores and down on Cresson Street there were stores. See, Tilden Street and Vaux Street those places were all woods. And they had big farms all around here.

CS: Well, when did that start to change on Conrad Street with all the stores?

RW: When the supermarket started. The first supermarket around here was the Acme. And it was down at Ridge and Midvale. And we used to walk down there.

CS: Is that where the Acme was?

RW: Yeah, it was down…

CS: Is it where there is a grocer there.

RW: Across from the firehouse. There was a drugstore there, last time I was down there.

CS: But that’s where the Acme used to be? When was that, in the 50’s?

RW: A lot earlier than that. When I was a child about ten years old. In 1910.

CS: I didn’t even know Acme was around then.

RW: When Acme was down there, when I used to go down over the railroad and there was a hill right after Midvale Avenue and we’d go down Midvale to Ridge Avenue, the corner, and they gave you crown (?) stamps with everything you got and then they would have all these special sales you know and the people would flock down when the specials were on. So eventually some of the grocers had to go out of business.

CS: So that was kind of the beginning when you’d see some of the stores…

RW: But they had the Acme down there for a long, long time, then they closed that and opened one over here at Bowman Street and Conrad.

CS: An Acme?

RW: An Acme Market and they had an A&P right over here where the politician is now.

CS: O’Donnell?

RW: O’Donnell. That was an A&P for a long time.

CS: So A&P’s and Acme’s must have been a lot smaller than they are today.

RW: Oh, they were, yeah. Then they had an A&P up at Tilden and Vaux

CS: I never heard that before.

RW: And then they went out of business and the Coldwell boys had it for a long time. I don’t know who has it now; I never go up that way. And, we had all kinds of stores around here. We had a fish store right across the street, we had a bakery in the next store, and at different times we had a fish store at the bottom of that street, and before that there had been a feed store for horses. Hay and feed all kinds of food. We had a grocery store at the bottom of this street and a grocery at the bottom of ? and a grocery store at the bottom of New Queen Street. Different people took them over, you know. We had a butcher store here. We had one at Bowman Street. We had a grocery store diagonal with the butcher. We had lots of them, and they’d be open at night. They were all open at night and they were open early in the morning until 9 and 10 o’clock some nights. And plumbers, we had good plumbers. A lot of the plumbing work around here was laid by Mr. O’Brien. Mr. O’Brien who used to be on Ridge Avenue , and Mr. Weir who used to be on Indian Queen Lane and Mr. Forster who used to be at Ridge and Calumet.

CS: So a lot of local workers.

RW: As you’d go along you’d see names on the vents in front of these houses.

CS: I wanted to ask you, this is switching the subject, but where did you go to school?

RW: St. Bridget’s

CS: You went to St. Bridget’s.

RW: I graduated from there.

CS: From the time you first went to school you went to St. Bridget’s?

RW: Um hum. We all did. Seven, six of us.

CS: Now is the school that you went to still there?

RW: Still the same school. The gray stone school. Then they built the new school and my son entered that….he was born in ’37. I forget when that was built, but it had just opened when he went into the 7th grade from the old school. Just went 2 grades there.

CS: What’s your most vivid memory going to school when you were a child?

RW: Well, I loved studying. I liked to study. I used to stay up ‘til 12 o’clock at night studying. And I liked the nuns. They were very nice to us and very polite. We were very polite at that time, too. And, we had a stage on the first floor. We used to have concerts over there. Then later they needed more room for children and they turned it into a classroom for the first grade. But, I can remember that stage there. And later on, many years after, the church used to have shows there and we’d go over. It was mostly adults in the chairs. Then later on when our old church was turned into a music hall, we used to have our affairs over there on Stanton Street. Course that’s been demolished since; there’s a playground there now.

But I loved school. I got seven certificates for daily attendance and the reason I didn’t get one the first year was I was sick for about a week or so, so I lost that. And my son got the eight for his attendance.

CS: Does that mean perfect attendance?

RW: Yeah, never late and never absent.

CS: Wow.

RW: And I liked it because we had to study and I loved studying and I wasn’t pushed in any way. You just had to study. Course the ones who didn’t study, they didn’t go ahead. We didn’t advance them. They didn’t go half. We didn’t get semi-annual examinations. Only once a year in June. So, you had to study pretty hard to pass that one examination in June.

CS: Can you just describe for me what a typical day was like at school from the time you’d get up and get off to school?

RW: Well, we went to school and when we went to school we said a prayer, the Our Father and the Hail Mary, and then we started on our schooling – our lessons and we had, I can’t recall just what our periods were during the day, but we had arithmetic, and English, and spelling. We had like four periods a day morning and afternoon. But I just can’t recall.

Then at Christmas time, Friday afternoon, we used to be allowed to make our Christmas presents. We listened to stories while we were sewing and making our Christmas presents. We could go around to the stores and could get ribbon like was on the bolt and we’d make pin cushions, we get scraps from home and we’d make pin cushions for the folks at home, my mother and sister. And then that time was when they wore hats and we’d make hat pin holders. We’d go to the drugstore and get a vial about that long and we’d twist ribbon around it and make like a rosette at the top and a hanger on it. And hang on the side of the bureau for your hat pins.

CS: So those were made.

RW: We made them in school. We’d make them a couple weeks before Christmas. And everything was made out of what—we had to go and get things for almost nothing, you know. Children didn’t have money like they have now. And then we would make something out of cardboard, as long as it was a Christmas present.

And then we had spelling bees, you know. And the captain, you know, she would pick her good spellers. She would pick them and then Sister would give us a word to spell, like on the side you would line up. And if she would miss it she would ask someone on the other side. No, she would ask the next one, and if she knew it, she would move up. And it was a race between my cousin and myself –which could stay first and second. (laughter) And, ah, then at the end of the year, the spellers were awarded something. So many spellers were awarded something.

Then while we were making Christmas presents, there’d be a girl reading us a Christmas story.

CS: Were your classes with boys?

RW: No, we were all girls when I went. And, it was a long time when my son went, too that they mixed them.

CS: That was different from the public school.

RW: Boys and girls went to the public school together.

CS: But at the Catholic School you were separated.

RW: We were separated.

CS: And did you have to pay to go to Catholic school?

RW: Oh, no. We didn’t have to pay. We were paying the City taxes. We didn’t have to pay to go to our own school. And that lasted for a long, long time. And we used to have what we called a school collection, I think, and they gave 25 cents a week for repairs. And when my boy went to Roman Catholic High School we never had to pay, only $15 a year. And some people doubted it, but it was. When he went it was $15 a year. And then from that on, things went up. Everything had to be repaired. And I was surprised when he came home and said “I have to have $15 tomorrow” and I said “What for?”

He said “School.” But when I was going to high school – I didn’t go to high school – but when my class went to high school they didn’t have to pay anything that I knew of. I went to business college.

CS: Now when did you finish at St. Bridget, then?

RW: 1914.

CS: And how old would you have been?

RW: I was 15 years old because we didn’t start till we were 7.

CS: And at that point you went to business college?

RW: No. I left in June, 1914 and my sister worked in the mill and she got me a job– most all the girls worked in the mill – because most of them couldn’t afford to go to high school – it was only two years then.

CS: What do you mean they couldn’t afford it – did they have to pay to go?

RW: No, they didn’t have to pay but they had to pay carfare. It was 5 cents but they couldn’t afford… They had to go to work to help the family. But the ones who had fathers – like my father, an engineer on the railroad – why they could pay and go to high school although a lot of them didn’t go. One of them that I knew, her mother had a business, a grocery store, she didn’t go to high school. She went to work in the butcher store as a cashier. But most of the girls couldn’t wait until they got in the mill. And when I went, I worked 15 months there, and it was like in school because all the girls I went to school with, excepting those few that went to high school. Well they only went two years to high school in those years. So I would work 15 months in the mill and I was 10 months in the business college and I graduated the same time they did and I got a job before they did. And I got twice as much as they did.

CS: Now what job did you get?

RW: I got a job as bookkeeper and stenographer in Dobson’s Mill on Scott’s Lane. I got worked in as plush mill in velvet and plushers – I worked in the velvet department and it was a nice job and I didn’t want to leave it to go to business college.

CS: Why did you?

RW: I liked it. And I liked working with the girls I went to school with. It was just like school, you know. And I came out…

CS: Why did you go to business college if you…What made you do that?

RW: My brother. My sister-in-law was a bookkeeping-stenographer and she said she thought it was a shame I was in the mill and she thought I should go to business college. So they paid for my business college education – my brother. See, there were still four of us at home, two boys had been married, and there were still four of us at home. We had had 7 but one died. So they thought I should go to business college and that’s how I come to go to business college. And when I first went it was quite different from St. Bridget School – there were girls and boys mixed and there were…

CS: What business college did you go to?

RW: Strayer’s. It was at 8th and Chestnut. And they – I took Pittman shorthand revised by Mr. Strayer and his brother – he had a college in Washington. And they shortened it so that we took, like, we had a lot of reporter’s word signs instead of long Pittman, see. But I also included court reporting word signs but I never used that. I would forget now, I guess. I know all my word signs, yeah, I often do dictation over the radio.

CS: Oh, that’s a good way to keep in practice!

RW: I keep up, I keep up. And I know all my bookkeeping. I run my house on a bookkeeping system.

CS: Good for you! That’s great.

RW: I never wanted to lose it in case I ever had to go to work, but I haven’t worked for 44 years. I left for the birth of my oldest son.

CS: You left work as a bookkeeper?

RW: When I was with Dobson. I worked there from October 1916 till February 1937. Counting the other time, I put 21 ½ years in.

CS: How did you get the job as the bookkeeper once you graduated from business college?

RW: Well the Strayer’s ran an employment office I worked in Mr. Strayer’s office and they guaranteed you a job. When I graduated in September, I worked in Mr. Strayer’s office as his stenographer-bookkeeper and I worked there for a month to get the experience and then I went out there to Dobson’s – Scott’s Lane.

CS: Did you just hear about the job?

RW: No, they called up. No, I didn’t hear about the job. See, all the firms would call Strayer’s Employment Agency. He had his own employment agency because he guaranteed you a job. And he would hold you in his office working so you that you could go right out and start working but it didn’t cost… (tape pauses here)

Of course it was quite different – I used to go along Conrad Street here over to Scott’s Lane and down Scott’s Lane – there’s how I used to go. But then when they started liquidating after the Great Depression, they rented the offices out – the buildings rather – and they moved us over to the carpet mall which was a mansion – an old mansion – the picture is in that book.

CS: Do you remember whose mansion it was?

RW: It’s in that book. I forget the name of it just offhand. And Mr. Dobson used that for an office. And I was there from about 1931 till 1937 in that department.

CS: Now was that when – since the Depression, is that when the mill started to…

RW: To liquidate. And they first started to sell all the machinery and all the material they had there.

CS: Were there any people still working there?

RW: Yes, there were people still working there when I left but there was only one man in the office and he was a CPA. And I was a jack-of-all-trades – telephone operator then, cost clerk, made out the payroll and everything. Once you worked for Dobson you did everything. But you see after 1929 business got slack and I didn’t have too much work to do so I really was – I didn’t get in until 9 and I left at-11. And I didn’t go back until 12 or 12:30 and I left at 5. I didn’t have the detailed work. And then they started leasing the buildings, as I said, and then they started selling them. As they emptied the buildings, they started selling them. And they wanted to sell them as a unit – the whole thing – the ones on Scott’s Lane and the ones on Crawford Street but they just didn’t get their price. And I guess the women – James had 5 daughters – and John had one – and John was dead by this time and James was dead too. So they liquidated and as the mills emptied I believe, I don’t know, but I believe somebody bought what was left.

But there are all kinds of businesses down there – I call it my alma mater. I pass down on Sundays on the bus –and come out Henry Avenue on the church bus and I’ll say “There goes my old alma mater!” (laughter). But it was a nice place. I had a nice position. Everyone was nice to me. I was practically my own boss. And I got vacations and when they liquidated I even got a couple weeks vacation of housecleaning! And I got my regular vacation. And when my mother was ill, I’d come home anytime – She’d just pick up the phone and I’d come right home.

CS: Why was that? Because the Dobsons were generous? Or they were fond of you?

RW: Well the Dobsons were already dead.

CS: I see. So you’re talking about when the mills were liquidating, you had a little more freedom.

RW: Yeah, I had a little more time.

CS: Now can you tell me what were the Dobsons like – the two Dobsons?

RW: Well, John Dobson when I went there – he was sort of senile. And he didn’t come in much – once in a while he would come in. But Mr. James Dobson, he came in every day in the morning and by that time he had a car. He didn’t always have an automobile. He would come up the hill on Crawford Street there, where the public school was, he would come up to – there was a hill on his property that would lead out to the railroad crossing. He walked to Bowman Street where the old railway station was and take the train down to the main office which was at 809 Chestnut Street.

CS: Oh, they had an office in town?

RW: Oh yes. We had an office where, oh, everything was done. There was an estate (?) of John Dobson’s located there too. See John Dobson owned all that property along the railroad. He owned a lot of property around here. But there was a combination. John Dobson was on the next floor and James – John and James – on the second floor from the street, the other was on the third floor – they conducted their business. Later it was mostly horseracing.

CS: Whose business was horseracing?

RW: John Dobson’s estate. His estate. You see his daughter, Mrs. Riddle, was a great horsewoman. She owned that Man-O-War horse that won so much money. And then her daughter married Mr. Jeffries. You’ll see his name in the papers now – Walter M. Jeffries – and he was a great horseman, see. They were all horsemen. And, as I said, Mrs. John Dobson had the one daughter and James had five. And two, like the father, two brothers married two sisters, the Scofield sisters.

CS: That’s what the Dobsons had done, right? Did you say that James and John…

RW: Had married the two Scofield girls. They worked for Mr. Scofield when they come to this country and then they met their future wives in the mill – their wives worked in the mill too – and they married these two girls. James married Mary Ann and John married Sarah. Then James had these five daughters and, just like their father, two daughters married two brothers. Two Dobson girls married two Norris brothers. Mrs. Richard and Mrs. John Norris. They married two Norris’ – Richard and John. They were a very fine family. As I said, John didn’t come in – after I went there in 1916, I only saw him a few times because he became senile. Then James did later on, but once in a while his chauffeur would bring him down. But John walked over. And he just lived around the corner on Allegheny.

And, Mrs. Altemus, she was a lovely woman. I knew them personally because they used to come down to the mill once in a while. And I knew Mrs. Riddle personally.

CS: They used to come down to the mill meaning…

RW: Bessie Dobson Altemus. She came down mainly during the First World War. She came down; she used to be dressed in white. A dress and a big white hat. In the summer she wore nothing but white. In the winter she wore black. A velvet dress with a long string pearls. And her hair became pure white. She was a beautiful woman. And they were all tall women except in the youngest girl, Florence, who married a lawyer from New York, Arthur Spencer. And she was a good sized woman but they were exceptionally tall.

CS: Was Mr. Dobson tall?

RW: No. John and James were – John Dobson was taller than James. James was a small man. In my eyes he looked small because I’m small. But on the other hand he was a very fine man. Now lots has been said about how mean he was – that is quite true. I know of one man who was going to be fired because he was out in politics. But he didn’t fire this man; this man quit before he was fired. (laughter).

CS: So people said he was mean…

RW: But, anyway, like if any children were around his property – he never had fences around his property – down to the playground was his property, and where the steel mill is. And I think it was comprised of 31 acres. And they wanted to try to get the public school to build a school down there but they wouldn’t do it because it was too near the railroad for children. And then the steel mill bought so many acres of ground down there. And he never had a fence around his property. He said nobody had a right on his property. And if anybody got hurt that was their own fault. And, of course, in those days people didn’t sue. They were afraid of losing their jobs. So there were a couple of men down there – one had his arm taken off and one had… – he worked in the carpenter shop and it was cut right off. They just signed that he would work with them and he would give them a life-long job. Well the mill liquidated, went out of business, and they were out of luck. But I must say, for myself, he was a very pleasant man. I took his dictation every morning when he come in, whatever he had, and he was a very pleasant man to us. He was up in years at that time; he could always crack a joke to somebody. Sometimes when I walked in, why, like one day I had a buzzer. That office had a door – our other offices didn’t. But when he would come in, they would close the door to talk privately, see? And I had this little buzzer in there and one push was for me. And two pushes were somebody else and so on. So one day it pushed and I grabbed my book and I started in but I knocked anyhow on the door before I went in and they said “Come in.” I come in and they all looked at me. There was this son-in-law – this Mr. Spencer, Mr. Dobson and the manager and the general manager there and the assistant general manager. And they looked at me and I was dumbfounded when they looked at me because the boss would always say “Sit down” – I’d have my favorite seat to sit down besides his desk and Mr. Dobson would sit beside him and he would dictate to me. And for a minute I didn’t know what to do. No-one spoke, they just looked at me in surprise. So the general manager – he must have sensed what was wrong and he said to me “What’s the matter, Miss Welsh?” And I said, “Well my buzzer rang.” And he said “Well we didn’t ring it.” (laughter) And I was embarrassed! I said “You didn’t ring it? I said, “Well it rang real loud.” So after a while the boss looked over the buzzer. Just then Mr. Dobson leaned back on his chair and with his head pushed the buzzer!”

CS: They wondered why you came in!

RW: The general manager said “Mr. Dobson, you called the girls!” “Miss Welsh” he said “I didn’t call her – I didn’t push no buzzer.” He said “You did with the back of your head!” Well Mr. (James) Dobson almost went off the chair laughing. And that’s how pleasant he was with us. He always had something nice to say.

One time he leaned down and I used to wear my hair – I always twist it in a roll – it looks like bob when I go out – but I always wore it in a roll in the back – I had extra long hair – black hair. And he put his hand on my head going out one day and he said “You have a beautiful head, little girl. Take care of it.” And I never had my hair bobbed – I’ve never been to the hairdresser only ten times in my life – and each time I had a bob was for my son’s wedding, that was 18 years ago and other times for something special. But we got a good laugh out of that, you know and so I’d always wait and I’d say to the boss “Push it twice when Mr. Dobson is here. Push it twice and I’ll know what to do – let someone else run in!” Then it was really funny, but he was a nice old man to me.

And when he come down sometimes he’d bring his wife with him, really lovely. And she was a nice – she was so small, and she used to wear a little bonnet tied under her – all in black she dressed and she had – she was up in years and she’d have a fine dress on, black trimmed with lace and all, and this little bonnet set up upon her head. And she had peaches and cream complexion. Beautiful little woman! And I would go out – I would sit in the car with her while they were inside and then she would ask me, you know, she’d ask me different little things about the mill because she never got down and got in the mill. They never took her down.

But, as I was saying, during-the First World War, Mrs. Altemus came down and she went – one time she brought a British soldier – he was an officer – I can’t recall what it was – and she was all in this white. And we had a platform built out in a little court for her to stand on and to talk and she introduced this officer. And then she had another American officer with her and he spoke to us all and we were all out there listening to him. Then after it was all over she said: ”Now we’re out for Liberty Bonds”. And she says “Who will be the first one to take it?” So some man stepped forward, you know, and he said he would be the first one to take it. She said “I’m not taking your name just now” but she said “Our assistant is here, Miss Welsh, and she’s going to come through the mill and you be sure to treat her right and give her a bond.” So, of course, I was well-known living here and most everybody from the Falls worked there, so you’d be surprised the bonds I got that day. And then there were so many more of them, I had to go back two or three days more to get them. And then it was taken out of their pay.

By the end of the time the war was over they had bonds to do whatever they – of course they could draw them after the war was over, you know. But that’s how many people got remodeling their homes from the bonds they bought in the First World War – and other things – paying their debts and all. You know some families had to double up; they were losing their homes and children were going with their parents. And you could buy homes very reasonably… men were building them and foreclosing on them, and anybody who had money could buy the houses.

But I must say I was glad I ever went back to work. And I got numerous people work down there. Then when they closed, you know, I was sitting there in the office nearly all day by myself, and we had different men used to come in and I’d be sitting there and one day a man came in and I thought: “I recognize that man” when he came in. It was then all those years since I had seen this person but I was trying to recall who this man was. And when I worked in the mill, I worked under this man. And he was a very fine man. And he lived in this town. When I said I was leaving, he said to me – now he was all over the whole velvet department – “Now why are you leaving?” And I told him. And he said “Oh, I’m glad you are. Getting a better education.” So I hadn’t seen that man for years – he had a mill of his own in Kensington – but when this man came in and I was really coming off on my lunch hour I thought: ”Oh, his face is familiar’. And when I went back, here was a note to make a bill out this man for some looms he had bought and a check. And as soon as I looked at his name, I said “Gee, that’s the same man. I wish I could have seen him, to tell him I was back in the same place!” I thought he would be interested, you know. But I hadn’t seen him; I guess he’s dead now.

CS: What was his name?

RW: Tom Murphy. Thomas Murphy. He was a fine boss too. He was boss over the whole velvet department. And I’ll tell you one time when I was in the mill I was given his pay by mistake.

CS: Oh, that would have been nice!

RW: I was given his pay by mistake. And they came around with long boxes – about that long and about that high to hold the pay envelope. We paid cash then – all cash. When my pay was handed out, you had a check about that long to hand with your name on it and you got your pay. And I took it and I walked back to where I belonged never looking at it. And when I go down and open it up, it had on it “Thomas Murphy” – it was his pay envelope. I didn’t give that to anyone. I held it. Of course he came in at a certain hour and when he came in, I walked up to him and I said “Mr. Murphy, I think this belongs to you.” But I didn’t tell anybody I had that pay. And he was very, very nice to me at all times but after that he was so glad that I was getting out of the mills. And I can remember that. But no-one to this day – I think you’re the first one I have told that too. Now I guess everybody will know!

CS: Now everybody!

RW: I liked it there. It was really home to me. But there’s so much you could tell about it. But I guess, maybe, I don’t know, sometimes I know he was mean but not to me. And I always had to speak up to people.

CS: What happened at the mill at Christmastime? Did he have any special for you or for his people who worked there?

RW: Nothing. For the office we always got Christmas presents. And when I was married they gave me beautiful silverware, both the firm and the family. I have a lot of silverware I got. And they were very nice to me – my mother – before I married she was very sick – she was in Jefferson Hospital. And they were very nice to me. I could just drop work whenever I felt like and go down to that hospital. If my sister got a call that she wasn’t feeling good, I could drop by work and go right down to the hospital and stay with her and then if she wasn’t well the next day I didn’t have to go in, I could go right down the hospital. That all counts. And then Mrs. Altemus knew my husband – he also worked at the main office – that’s where I met him. And Mrs. Altemus and Mrs. Jeffries they all knew him. They’d go down to the office. They knew him as well as they knew me. But see they knew my family – my parents and my grandparents before me. All were in the Falls. They knew everybody’s parents. My mother never worked in the mill but my father did. He started 9 years old and he started on a little stool to get up to where the machine was going. And my grandfather taught the Dobsons to do things. He was a boss carter (carder?) up at the stone mill up at the Wissahickon Creek. When the Scofield girls came here, he taught them certain things and then when he was down the mill – he was a boss carder there – and then later his son was in the spinning room. It’s a very extensive trade – I mean it has a lot of detail to it. They took me out – anything I would ask about, they would take me right out and show me – how it was made – it would come in sheered from the sheep’s back and it would be in oil that the sheep had picked up no matter where he went in his body (indecipherable) and then they would send it what they called the scouring room. And they had washing tubs and they were, like, half a circle. And they would put that in – they would first send it to what they called pickering house or burr room or something and they would pick all those stickers and everything off

CS: Is that where the little children worked? Did I hear that somewhere? They put little children in there?

RW: No, not in the pickering house. They put little children – my father – worked in the spinning room. I don’t know where…anyway, this machine, the first machine would take all the stickers out – anything they picked up in their wool. And then this other machine would wash it and it would come out beautiful. Like silk. You could take it like that and squeeze it.

And then it would go into a carding room – that’s what my grandfather had been – boss carder – and it would be put on a carding machine which would separate it into little pieces.

And they would come down and go on spools and then it would take it to the spinning room where the machines would go back and forth and would spin and twist it, twist it into certain grades, like thick or light, you know, the threads.

And then it would be taken from there to the winding room where the girls would wind it on the spools.

And then from the winding room it would be put into bobbins – steel bobbins – about that long. I’m talking particularly now about velvet. And they were like steel bobbins and they would run back and forth. And then there was a beam, which was a cylinder about this high, and threads were running around that – they called them beamers, the woman who did that. And then they were like on the bottom and then you churdled (?) you had toppers called the filling and the bottom called the warp and the threads would come in like this from the warp, and the shuttle went across with the filling. I had some beautiful velvet upstairs that they wove.

CS: Oh, really?

RW: Yes. When we stopped working, why we could take anything we wanted and I took some velvet, see, and some upholstery stuff, I took. We had our sale room was in New York and that all came back. We sold a lot of it. Then there were a lot of odds and ends left in velvet. Beautiful velvet. It was hat velvet and dress velvet. And the dress velvet was all panne velvet – that was pressed (?) real…

CS: Is that ever the velvet the Mrs.Dobson – that Bessie Altemus wore?

RW: Yeah. The back of that was silk. The back here was silk and the face was silk too. Of course that panne velvet was beautiful. I have a dress upstairs of it but it’s put away. My sister had made it for me before I started to sew myself. I had a little jacket with buttons down here.

CS: Made out of material from the mill?

RW: Yeah. And they wore long skirts down here then. I…invited to get (indecipherable) down there on Scott’s Lane. Through his knowledge (John Dobson) of textiles, he was – of course he was a citizen. He was made an officer in the Union Army, John. And James I guess too. That was before my time. Later in years they kept up blankets, but then they made clothing blankets for men and women’s suiting – overcoat material – and they made suiting – men and women’s suiting – pin striped suiting – that was a great go. And then they made coats – lumberjacket cloth – plaids and for woman they made fake fur – teddy bear cloth, you know for teddy bears? And cerical (?), black cerical (?), they made that. And they made plushes.

And not only did they have these mills down here, they had other mills besides what’s in the Falls. They had the Somerset (that was named after a town in England), out at 8th and Somerset Streets in Kensington. And they had a men’s/woman’s suiting out in Germantown – that was called the Bradford Mills, a town in England. And then they had a place in Kensington called fleece-lined underwear, like they used to wear and I think you can buy men’s sport jackets with that, for sports, you know, to absorb perspiration. And they had a yarn mill up in Manayunk; it was called Mt. Vernon Mill, that was called. I don’t know if they had a Mt. Vernon in England, but we had a Mt. Vernon here. And they had an interest in the Imperial Woolen Company and the Dobsons’ women – it was run by their brother down in Manayunk. Imperial Woolen Company. And they had an interest in that. And they were also very fine men. I knew two of them coming in the office.

CS: We’re almost at the end of the tape, and I had one question I also wanted to ask you about the Dobsons. Did Mr. James, who was there, or was it John…which one did you say was around more?

RW: James. He lived longer than John.

CS: James, he’s the one. Did he have any special quirks, or odd things that he did? Any special habits?

RW: Not in my time. He just would come in and he would stay about an hour and a half and get everything that had come up in the day before. And all matters would be brought up to him and letters he wanted to answer personally, we could answer those. And at times he wouldn’t even sign them. You know, he’d leave them and sign them part of his name, see.

But John, John, yes, he had one thing. When I first went there, there was an old swivel chair there and it must have been out in the weather because it looked like weather-beaten. And if you touch it, it went this way, you know. So nobody touched it. There was a new girl in the office. Brand new desk and a chair – the typewriter would go down –I pulled it up and down like my sewing machine and then they had a nice chair for it. And I also had another flat old table that was there that I used to work the bookkeeping. So I always wondered what this chair was sitting there in the corner. So one day I asked, you know. “Oh don’t touch that chair” – he was still coming in at that time, you know. “That’s a $50,000 chair.” And I said “$50,000? I’d throw that out” to the boss. “I’d throw it out. It’s so old.” And he said “Oh, no. Do you want to hear the story about it?” I said yes. He said “Well there was a firm that owned Mr. John Dobson $50,000. And he couldn’t get nothing out of him! So he went down there and he grabbed that chair and he said “I’m going to get me $50,000 worth!” So that’s why they term it the $50,000 chair. So after Mr. Dobson died, perhaps it went in the junkyard, I guess. It went out of the office because they were afraid someone would sit on it! But nobody… it was pushed back in the corner and somebody might accidently pick it out. That was real funny. I wish he had told me that joke himself – a joke on him – but he, James, was a real nice man. I think he changed as he got older. It was a shame they did away with the mill but no one wanted it. See after he died the woman didn’t want to keep it.

CS: It must have been hard on the people…

RW: ……work you know. And I would go down and there would be men there who had been there a long time. And I did get several people work through men that were coming in and buying the machinery or buying something, you know, or leasing the buildings. And I did get a few people in that way. But I used to feel sorry because people would come into the office and walk all the way from Kensington looking for work.

CS: Oh! All the way from Kensington!

RW: All the way from Kensington looking for work! And when they couldn’t get any here, they’d walk all the way up to Manayunk and the same thing up in Manayunk. They couldn’t get work.

CS: And this was during the Depression.

RW: And they were selling candy. I’d buy candy off them; I was sick at my stomach. And they were selling – they used to go, years ago, from door-to-door selling notions, you know. Peddlers, they called them. And they’d come in there with a big basket of stuff and I’d say -”Come on, I’ll take you out in the mill, the men that were still there, and see if somebody wants something. And I’d go out and he’d stand at the door…

Lizanne LeVine (1933 – 2009) and Peggy Conlan (1925 – 1991)

Entertaining interview with the sisters of Grace Kelly reminiscing about their growing up in East Falls.

N.B. This tape is in poor condition. A large portion of it is inaudible. At times, the interviewees speak over each other and it is difficult to understand what is being said. Also, their voice are quite similar so there is difficulty understanding which sister is speaking. A.F.

CS: Ok, well, we can start out by, just, what were the names of your parents and when did they come to East Falls?

LL: Peggy, you start with that one.

PC: Well, Daddy was born and raised in East Falls.

LL: Was he born in East Falls or was he born in New York?

PC: He was born in East Falls, Lizanne, I’m sure…

LL: Well, now we’re taping and we’re not quite sure about that one… He came when he was little; the family was originally from New York.

PC: Yes…

LL: Yeah, from Vermont. East Falls they came to, settled.

PC: But I’m pretty sure Daddy was born here.

LL: The earlier ones were born in Vermont. It was a very large family. Ten children.

CS: And your mother?

LL: Mother was born in the Strawberry Mansion area.

PC: 33rd and Dunne?

LL: Yes, and then when they were married in 1924, they moved right to the corner of Ridge and Midvale while their house was being built on Henry and Coulter Street.

PC: They lived over a store on the corner.

LL: Didn’t they live in an apartment over a shop?

PC: I don’t believe it was a shop. It was a saloon called the Gunboat.

LL: No. Peggy was born in 1925, Jack in 1927, Grace in ’29 and I’m 33.

PC: You were born in ’33!

LL: Well, we don’t have to go into that… (laughter)

CS: How did you see East Falls change since you were growing up? In appearance? In makeup?

LL: Since the project, the Schuylkill Falls Project, was built there has been a great change. Before that it was just nice and gradual. That changed East Falls completely, in my way of thinking.

CS: When was that?

LL: Late ‘40’s, because I went to school at Ravenhill Academy and I remember when the project was going up and Reverend Mother was rather concerned because our hockey field looked over the project and she was greatly concerned that all these houses and stuff were going up. And that has to be the late ‘40s when that went up.

PC: Sure.

LL: And also the other thing that grew up were the houses across the street – – I don’t know if that’s East Falls – on the other side of School House Lane – there used to be a big forest down there – all the houses across the street from Ravenhill Academy on School House Lane.

PC: It still kept a lovely appearance and openness.

LL: Another thing, of course the whole area has grown up, we used to go down Henry Avenue and walk for miles and see nothing. There were never all those houses there. Those, I guess, go all the way to Roxborough. I remember when they talked about the Henry Avenue Bridge being opened to go across into Roxborough.

CS: How did you get across before then?

LL: I would imagine old Ridge Avenue. Down in the Falls. You went through the Wissahickon. There used to be a riding academy not too far from here.

PC: Right off of Henry Avenue

LL: And we used to go riding there and down to the Wissahickon.

PC: Wasn’t it Dupont Street? Rector Avenue. It’s still there. I saw horses crossing Henry Avenue just this morning from Andorra. They’re still crossing Henry Avenue with all that traffic. They’re crossing with traffic lights now.

LL: And our brother went to Penn Charter. So we all went to school right in the neighborhood. We all walked to school. We used to walk down through people’s property and up the hill up to Ravenhill – Roseneath farm was there.

RE: “The Nuts”

LL: Well, yes, the nuts. Well, Ruthie…

CS: Where was that again?

LL: It’s right down the end of Warden Drive

CS: Where is that again?

PC: The back of the property went all along Warden Drive there at the bottom of the hill but the entrance was up on School House Lane so it went right on through. A very lovely deep property.

CS: That’s not there?

LL: Oh, yes, it’s there. The original house has been ripped down and Textiles School bought it. And Textiles School has now bought Ravenhill. And they bought Lankanau School.

PC: And they bought your old house.

PC: And they bought my house. I lived on School House Lane when I was first married.

CS: Are they using that building?

LL: Yes, the president lives there.

RE: They are buying up all over.

LL: I don’t know who the Levys sold theirs to – Temple.

PC: Probably, but Goldie Paley, I believe, belongs to Textiles. And that’s used as a little museum now; it’s lovely. We went there the other day. But the big – Leon Levy’s house – big house down in sunken hollow – that’s Temple, I think. Or maybe it’s Textile.

PC: Textile used to use for soccer practice up front on School Lane, but the actual house; LL: I thought Temple – they gave it to Temple – I think the Leon Levy’s – right on the corner of School House Lane and Henry Avenue – beautiful White Corners – I wouldn’t be surprised if Temple hadn’t given it over to Textiles or University of Pennsylvania. Textiles is getting so big now.

PC: They might not need it.

LL: They might not need it but it would be lovely to have.

RE: Leon Levy was head of…

PC: CBS.

RE: CBS; that will identify him.

PC: But when they first moved to the neighborhood they were with WCAU and KYW, the radio stations.

CS: Were they living here when you were here?

LL: Yes, we were here.

CS: They had kids your age?

PC: Yes, Lizanne’s age.

CS: What were your most vivid memories of going to Ravenhill?

LL: Going to school – the farms. I started when I was two years of age. I was Baby Jesus in the crib.

PC: Lizanne was Jesus, I was a wiseman and Grace was a shepherd.

LL: And I was in the crib – I remember that – I don’t know why

PC: We used to cart Lizanne to school. The nuns were sweet. They would take your little sisters at any time you wanted to bring them.

LL: On rainy days mother used to ship me off to school.

PC: The classes were so small – 6 girls in my class.

LL” I was the only one in 1st grade

PC: For one year she was the only one….

LL: So I just walked around to all the different classes. When I graduated our class grew up to a big booming 17.

CS: Really? Were there boarders there?

LL: Yes, many boarders. There were a lot of Spanish-speaking girls because it was an order of nuns that had convents…

PC: In Manila and Nicaragua.

LL: People would send their daughters to Ravenhill.

CS: When you went to play, did you play mostly at home or go to playgrounds in the area? What did you do?

PC: We didn’t go – I didn’t go – to playgrounds. We had most of our athletics after classes at school.

LL: We didn’t get home until it was almost dark. When we got home from school after hockey we walked home. We did have a tennis court in the backyard and my brother, when he was young, – I guess dad did it – put a basketball court in. And the neighborhood kids used to always come over, even after Kell stopped playing and was in college. The kids, the McIlvaine kids and their friends, used to come and play basketball in the court.

PC: And football in the side lawn.

LL: Yeah and a little bit of baseball in McMichael Park. We went over there and if you’d have a baseball game going. I was never much for softball; we watched them really. But McMichael Park was quite the thing in the springtime. That was about it. We didn’t go too far afield.

PC: There was a lot of activity in our house.

LL: We used to walk over here in early spring, coming to Alden Park and going swimming over here in the swimming pool, when this first opened.

PC: Yes, when this pool opened, right here where we are now.

RE: When you were little?

PC: We had friends that lived here in the apartments and we would visit them and go swimming with them.

LL: And go swimming. The swimming pool here, now it doesn’t do it, but it used to, it’s an indoor pool now, but it used to have a roof –

PC: A sliding roof.

LL: And it was opened in the summertime. And before we went to the shore, cause you see, we were gone all summer long, and we’d come over here and swim. We’d walk over here and swim.

RE: You see, Lizanne, You said why I did exactly the same thing as your children did. My children went to the “Bathey.”

CS: What’s the “Bathey?”(Laughter)

RE: It’s a public – a city-owned swimming pool down there and they called it the “Bathey.” And it was free. And it opened a certain date and closed a certain date and you could go any day and it had a lifeguard there. And they also went to —what was the…

PC: Oh! Down, right down on the Schuylkill Drive? You mean? You mean Gustine Lake?

RE: Gustine Lake! They all went there to splash around but not to Alden Park Manor—you see you were different. (Laughter)

PC: It’s just that we went to school with these girls.

CS: And they lived over here?

PC: Yes, and we’d walk over here.

LL: And our brother, some of them were boys who went to Penn Charter that we knew who lived here.

CS: Were you involved in any of the local community organizations?

LL:Just our school—when I was in school I was at the Vernon Park, something or other, Germantown—it was a Germantown Organization. But, no, we really weren’t involved too much in the local…

RE: The hospital…

LL: Oh well, Medical College. That is a different story.

CS: Go ahead about that ‘cause I know your whole family was involved there.

LL:Well Mother, Mother just started that. She just started that. I don’t know how Mother got involved but I think…

PC: Mother got involved because she taught there before she was married. Mother taught athletics.

LL: Athletics at Penn and also Women’s Med – it was Women’s Medical College then, she taught basketball.

PC: The students. Athletics. But then they were so busy, they soon dropped their athletic program.

LL: Yeah, It wasn’t necessary for the medical students to take athletics. But Mother was teaching at the same time at Penn.

LL: And they also had lack of room—they used the gym you know. So Mother was very involved in Medical College for a long, long time. And just kept going. And when we were children… Pause….Do we tell that we stole flowers?

LL: They used to have a lot of booths and everything around and there was—we always had to raise money and there was a flower booth. And also we had a flower booth right outside our front. On Saturdays we would decide it would be a good day to sell flowers in the late spring. And the Godfrey gals and the Kelly gals would get together and we would make—The day before up until it was, oh, 7o’clock, 8o’clock ‘til you couldn’t even see, we would climb the fence and steal Old Mosie Brown’s – well that wasn’t bad–the violets…

PC: The violets. Stealing Mosie Brown’s – he never even knew they were there in the back of his huge property. He had acres and acres and acres and we climbed the fence and would make-up all the bouquets of little violets.

LL: And daffodils

PC: But then all our neighbors in the back of the alley, we used to send Grace and the little ones up to steal all their—the neighbors’ flowers and we set them out at front and as the neighbors would go by in the morning we would sell their own flowers to them. Or we’d send the little ones with a little basket on their arms to go knocking on the doors. And they couldn’t resist these sweet little girls who had just stripped the backs of their gardens.

LL: It was for a good cause.

PC: I don’t know if they knew or not.

LL: Oh I’m sure they did but no one said anything. No. It’s sweet. It’s cute, no one said anything.

PC: Poor Mother she wouldn’t have approve if she had known—Mother didn’t realize that we were being…

LL: Mother knew exactly what was going on (laughter)

PC: Do you think she did, Liz?

LL: Mother! You did know!

RE: I think that your memories of the hospital fete in the front of the hospital when they used to—that would be nice.

LL: Well, we used to do that for years. Mother was in charge.

PC: Mother was in charge of it.

LL: Well, not the whole chairman but she was in charge of the chicken pot pies.

PC: Dinner. Well, the dinner came after. I can remember when they had the fete before they even had the dinner Liz.

LL: Well, Mother was in charge of the chicken pot pie dinner.

PC: And the strawberry shortcake dinner. It was a big success.

LL: And what we used to do—we’d sell chances and the cars—what we did for that hospital! I just shake my head when I sit at board meetings now. But it really—

PC: We fed patients; we were nurse’s aides and all that.

CS: So you worked in the hospital?

PC: Yes

LL: Our new president in the hospital is Morrie Clifford, Maurice Clifford, I should say, I shouldn’t call him by a nickname. He was just inaugurated. He’s a delightful person and I, we had, Mother and I, went to a dinner though for Doctor Fay. Marion Fay has always lived in East Falls who used to be President and a Dean of Medical College.

PC: She lived on Queen Lane.

LL: They just honored her the other day with dedicating a wing, the Marion Spencer Fay Wing.

PC: Oh really?

LL: Yes. She had a lovely reception and Mother and I went and then they had a dinner for her and we went there. And then we just inaugurated a new president, Maurice Clifford. He will now be living in East Falls—he lives in Chestnut Hill now but he’s moving to The Oak Road—is that East Falls?

PC: Yes.

LL: He’s moving there and he is a delightful person, he really is. The first time I met him I was working at Medical College in the pre-natal clinic in 1955, and you were in charge of volunteers.

RE: Not really, Marie Hess was.(overtalk)

LL: You worked with Marie and you stuck me in the pre-natal clinic (Laughter).

RE: I remember.

LL: I was pregnant too. And you know what? They got better care than I did I think.

They did.

RE: But she saw life in the raw as far as having a baby because she delivered her baby, I didn’t realize it.

LL: Well, I couldn’t believe it! I kept going to my obstetrician, Joannie Roberts, who was also a graduate of Medical College.

PC: Yes, Women’s Medical

LL: And I said Joannie, they give pills and all that stuff, I’ve seen what they do, and you’re not doing that to me (laughter)

RE: The clinic patients always got better care than any private patient ever did. The diabetics. The diabetic clinic I worked in for years and I never heard of such marvelous care as they got. Their lectures, and their education, and their testing, and their medication—everything was much better.

PC: Well I know the one time I was there in the clinic and Maurice Clifford—it was his first year at the Medical College and I used to have to weigh the patients and take some specimens and do paperwork and then put them in the cubicles and call the doctor to come visit them. And as I put this one patient, she had been there for many years cause it was her 20th baby, so I put her on the table and I said, “Oh my God! Morrie!” I didn’t call him Morrie then—“Doctor Clifford! There’s a baby! (laughter) And I tell you, he came running and that was—he does remember me from that. He says, “Boy do I remember you ‘cause I’ve never seen anybody look so mmmmm (laughter)

CS: Was the affair at Women’s Medical that raised money all-day long?

LL & PC: Yes (In unison)

RE: Oh it was wonderful!

PC: It was fun.

RE: It was like a small town thing which we don’t often get in the big city. And you could go there in the morning with your children and they would be amused, and you could eat, and you could buy, and you could take chances. And you could meet all your neighbors up there and it went on up there all day and dinner by Mrs. Kelly with her chicken pies and then on into the evening. And we had fabulous things at our hospital fair that no other hospital could have had—like a painting, an original painting, by you, of the Prince.

CS: And when was this?

LL: Well, this was back—it lasted until about ‘56

PC: I forget the year of the last one…

LL: It was about ’56 because they built the one wing and we couldn’t do it anymore—I mean, space.

CS: It was held out on the grounds outdoors?

PC: Yes

CS: What time of year?

PC:May, the end of May.

LL: Just because of space you just couldn’t have it anymore. But, well, Peggy was very big on …

PC: Lemon sticks. If I cut another hole in a lemon I (laughter) lemon, Lemon sticks, yes. (laughter)

LL: It was fun. And I do know, I know the fair lasted to ’56 because after that it might be ’57. I don’t think it did because I had Gracie. It was May 17th – I had the baby and the fair was going on and she was born in 1956, so I know the fair was going on till 1956.

Now after that…

PC: Well then Germantown Hospital always had their Rose Carnival and then the Abington Hospital had the …

LL: June Fete

PC: June Fete and Memorial had an affair but we just stopped ours.

LL: Well it was really because of the wing and the space.

RE: I heard, I don’t know how true it is, that when the Project moved in there, that a lot of undesirables came and swiped and vandalized

PC: Yes it was very difficult

LL: It was during the fair

PC: It was very difficult.

CS: Now what year was it then that Women’s Medical opened? In the 20’s?

LL:Oh, Women’s Medical – It was in town.

PC: Women’s Med opened in 18–, oh it’s very old – 18…

RE: Not in the Falls though?

PC:It came up here about 1935?

LL: No, no, earlier than that—’24, ‘25

PC: Up here?

LL: No—you look in the front of the building, darling.

CS: I was thinking it was in the 20’s somehow

LL: Well, it’s in the 20’s—something in the 20’s babe. Oh gosh, I’m on the board and I should know and I don’t know.

PC: When it moved up here.

CS: Was your family involved at the time it opened?

PC: Mother was.

LL: Mother was almost from the inception.

PC: Yes. Well, I think after several of us were born, she really went over there constantly because it was just down the street; it was so nearby.

CS: I read somewhere that also a circus that you used to have at your house—is it a tale or true?

PC: We just did that one year but it was a big circus for the children but that went toward the fete. That money went into the hospital, to the hospital

LL: Mother arranged it. I was too young to remember really — what were you in that circus?

PC: I was the ringleader, dear.

LL: Oh—I was Tom Thumb, probably. And Dixie our niece, our cousin, she was very tiny. Well, she was married to Tom Thumb. We had the Tom Thumb wedding. (laughter)

LL: I was about four and she was three so I don’t know too much about that circus.

PC: Grace, I do remember, Grace was a tightrope walker—except the rope was on the ground – it was laid on the ground.

LL: But she did a beautiful job—she looked the part. And Fordie’s daughter or something who was—he was the Wild Man from Borneo.

PC: Oh certainly.

CS: Who was that?

LL: Fordie, our colored guy, our chauffeur, his son or something was the Wild Man from Borneo (laughter)

CS: Did people pay to get into this?

LL: Oh yes. It was all for the hospital.

CS: And what year would you say?

LL: 1938?

PC: Yes, about 1938.

CS: And it was just your family or did you have friends?

PC: No! All our entire neighborhood was in this. It was big! Oh there were hundreds of people there. In the whole big tennis court. Oh it was a big circus!

LL: All the funeral parlors gave Mother the chairs—Mother could get anything from anybody…

PC: Yes. (laughter)

LL: Any affair—call Charlie McIlvaine for chairs. He was a lovely…

PC: It was a big one.

LL: That was only one year however. Should have done that again.

PC: Maybe we should institute that again before poor Mother dies (laughter)

CS: Where is the house located?

LL: On the corner of Henry Avenue and Coulter Street, yes.

CS: And that’s still there?

PC: Yes, it has been sold.

LL: Mother sold it once and it’s been sold again and I think that’s all. I don’t know who owns it now, I really don’t.

CS: And how long did you live there—did the family own the house?

PC: Yes. Forty-four years, about 44 years.

CS: And it was sold?

PC: Daddy died in 1960 and Mother stayed on. She said as long as she had her little man, Fordie, her little helper, she would stay. And stayed there for a number of years alone. And then when Fordie died, she went.

LL: Twelve years ago Mother sold it.

PC: Yes.

RE: But you had other help in the house. You had a couple.

LL: Yes German help. Mother always had German help.

RE: Because I remember I had gotten a day’s worker who had come over from Germany. She was a—she worked in a hospital, not a nurse, and she was a Christmas gift from Doctor Fieldler’s wife’s mother in Germany. Hermother said, “What do you want for Christmas?” She said, “Somebody to help me with the housework.” And she sent her this girl from the hospital. And she was too heavy a worker and she couldn’t have enough work in the house. So, she, Mrs. Fieldler, asked me if I could use her and I said, “Sure.” And she came up and worked for me and she spoke often of my friends the Kelly’s, meaning the couple. She was friends with them.

LL: Franz and Theresa, the German couple. Well Franz and Theresa. We had one couple, we had Luchese, Mrs. Luchese, who was German.

PC: Was she German or Polish?

LL: Polish-Luchese. And her daughter stayed with us and went and became a doctor at—studied at Medical College.

PC: They were from Ohio

LL: And her mother worked for us and the daughter graduated from Medical College and she stayed with us and then we had Franz and Theresa who were German. Because Mother speaks German.

PC: But then after the war, it was difficult getting the German girls over that Mother used to have all the time. They would learn English quickly and then get married.

RE: So you see Cheri, their life was not like mine.

LL: My life was not like mine, then, too—I know that.

RE: When she called—well like shopping–where did you shop? I got on the 52 and went to Germantown just like anybody else and did my shopping.

PC: We did. We went on the 52 and went to Rowell’s a million times.

LL: We went to Rowell’s and Allen’s and you went to the movies at the Alden Theatre. Well, Alden Theatre. What I remember when I was a kid, going to the Alden Theatre it was 11 cents.

RE: Eleven cents!!

LL: Eleven cents for a Saturday afternoon matinee you walked down to Alden Theatre, paid 11 cents and Mother used to be magnanimous and give me at least another five cents for a candy bar. (laughter) And so for 15, well, 16 cents you could have a movie, a double feature and a candy bar.

PC: Lizanne, you don’t even remember the old Falls Theatre.

LL: I don’t remember that.

CS: Where was that?

PC: Down below almost to Ridge.

RE: At Eveline and Midvale?

PC: Yeah, sure.

RE: Eveline is a little street that goes off Midvale and—it’s a gray building now—it’s painted gray but that was the original Falls Theatre and that’s where I went.

CS: The Betsy Ross? The Betsy Ross Building?

PC: Yes that’s right. The Falls Theatre.

CS: It has the Betsy Ross Flag on the front?

PC: Right.

LL: Well Peggy, see you’re much older that me

PC: It’s true. Dear. It’s true.

RE: That was the original theatre.

PC: No, the Alden Theatre was just built

RE: Where Ginos is now

PC: Where Ginos is now.

RE: Yes, cause my daughter went there, and she and her girlfriend Betty Jane Bennett always sat in the seventh row, seventh seat and god help anybody who sat in them.

Did you have that?

LL: No

Dead air then tape continues

PC: The whole group was involved in that (laughter). Through our uncle—Mother’s brother, Midge Majer, lived on Queen Lane and he and his wife were interested and we all got started.

LL: Well I think Aunt Virginia and Uncle Midge were first things there and we used to watch them and they got us all involved.

PC: And the Canoe Club—Old Academy and the Canoe Club

LL: We’re still involved—Don and I are still involved with Old Academy

CS: Do you remember the first play you were in?

PC: The Women. I took over for Grace; she got the measles

RE: Grace was in The Women—she got the measles and you took over.

PC: I took over.

CS: Is that the one you took over with one night’s notice or something?

PC: She got the measles—well, there were so many women in that show, The Women.

It was during the war. Grace had two small parts. She was a hairdresser and a debutante. Because you could just change your clothes—it’d be another body backstage—and here she could just change your clothes and it was only one body for two parts.

It was a very small part with just a few speaking lines so that was very easy to do. It was the night of dress rehearsal and we were sitting at the dining room table and mother looked over and said “Gracie, you look a little flushed and funny. She was breaking out just then and had a fit! Right before the big night comes down with the measles – she was only 12 or 13. Old Academy was not too particular. (laughter)

(Side Two of tape)

LL: I think the first one I did was The Philadelphia Story. I was the brat sister and I think my two sisters thought I was very well-cast.

RE: I remember going down on the train to Center City one time and Gracie and Lizanne got on and I/we pulled the seats and I sat with them. And Gracie was her usual gracious, friendly, sweet self and I kept addressing remarks to Lizanne who would…. (laughter)

LL: Well, I must say I guess I was not the most pleasant of children. I don’t know but I’ve been told that I was a brat.

PC: Yeah. Adorable. Beautiful.

LL: But a brat.

RE: She had almost white hair.

LL: Real blonde

RE: And braids, thick braids down here and beautifully dressed and beautifully built and everything and she’d sit there down at Old Academy with her Mother and Father between them and go….. (laughter)

LL: Well, I just didn’t care for everybody that I saw somehow. But I was a brat. Because Grace used to say to me, “How come you’re not as nice as I was to Peggy? You’re not as nice to me as I was to Peggy?” Grace was sweet to Peggy, and she was Peggy’s lackey really, and I was not cut-out to be a lackey. I was not. In years to come I’ve turned out to be a much better lackey but I was not then.

PC: NO! (in unison) No. No way.

CS: So how would you characterize yourself? If Grace was sweet then…

PC: Well I was bossy; sure. But she was so easy to get along with, you know, “get this; get that, do this; do that.”

LL: Well, I’ll never forget one time with Peggy—Peggy was pretty good, you know, Peggy was the matriarch of the kids. My brother used to have a bunk house or a—what would you call it?

PC: It was a bunk house.

LL: Out in the back of the house and they had what they called the Tomato Men Club.

PC: The club was just for boys.

CS: Where did the name come from?

PC: It was right by our victory garden and Mother grew a great many tomatoes. And the boys would love to pick up those tomatoes and have fights with them, so it was called the Tomato Men. No reason.

LL: So one time Grace and a girlfriend wanted to get into the clubhouse, the bunk house. No girls were allowed. ERA had not risen its head at that point. So apparently there was one girl who lived in the Falls or two girls were allowed in—they were not in on a Sunday morning, a Saturday morning or something like that.

PC: Two girls were allowed in to see the bunk house. And Grace was not. And Grace came running to me having a fit that these two gals were allowed in and she was not. I took care of that.

LL: You sure did! (laughter) You punched your brother right in the nose and gave him a bloody nose and I him coming, flying through the garden…

PC: Did I run!

PC & LL: Oh Boy! (unison) (laughter)

LL: Kell is not a mad person but he was mad at Peggy that time—flying the two of them.

She’s ahead of him and he’s flying with his nose—she gave him a bloody nose.

In front of his girlfriends. You let your sister in and Whacko! She gave him…. Ever since then, you know, we give her a wide berth when she gets mad. Just give her a little wide berth. (laughter)

PC: Grace was so meek, you know, that you just wanted to stick up for her and help her.

LL: Well, that was so funny and, oh, I’ve never seen my brother so mad in my life. (laughter)

RE: How about the dollhouse—that it was a child’s playhouse?

LL: Well it was in the same area in the back where the bunkhouse was. In the back behind the tennis courts. This they really almost built themselves—the dollhouse was rather nice looking. It wasn’t a dollhouse, it was a play house. We had an electric stove in there. Absolutely!

RE: A real one?

LL: A real on. You could cook all the old apples that fell off the trees—I don’t know what we cooked-up on them—you didn’t eat them. It had two burners. It was really a little dangerous and then it was taken out.

CS: Was it one room?

PC: One room, a little porch, door—oh, you could stand up in there

CS: It’s not there anymore.

PC: No but it was moved. It was the air raid—Daddy gave it to someplace in East Falls and it was an air raid warden shelter—so the dollhouse, the playhouse…

RE: On Henry Avenue?

PC: On Henry Avenue.

CS: Where we vote? It’s still there?

PC: Yes a teensy little thing.

RE: It’s hallowed house. I’ll go in there the next time I vote and think of you all.

I’ve heard so many of the senior citizens at the library speak of Gracie, and the call it, Gracie’s dollhouse. And I said, “Dollhouse!” because you know me and the dolls.

PC: They moved it. Daddy gave it during the war, gave it to an air raid shelter or whatever.

RE: My Word!

LL: It had shutters on it and a little shingled roof. I sure they propped it up higher and made it a little higher, a little taller.

RE: No, no it’s pretty much the same. It’s one room—how about that!

PC: Two little pillars out front and then it was a wooden floor. We had darling furniture in there. Yep.

LL: We used to call it the playhouse.

PC: It was the playhouse.

RE: Well these people…

PC: Oh six or seven kids could get in there easily.

RE: Because a lot of the East Falls children went up there a played in it, whether you knew it or not.

PC: Oh sure. It was never locked.

RE: Because I just found out that my daughter and her girlfriend used to go up there and I said, “You never told me that.” She said, “Well we sneaked it, Mother.”

LL: Well it was never locked.

RE: Nobody chased us except there was a dog who came around and growled.

CS: Was that your dog?

LL: Our dogs were so friendly there were so many kids around. It could have, oh, it could have been the German shepherds next door that were so…

PC: No, they weren’t nice.

LL: Our dogs were very nice.

LL: We had a couple of boxers, actually Mother got a boxer, the first boxer I ever saw. And we had two boxers, Wrinkles and Ziegfried.

PC: Wouldn’t bother a soul

LL: No, would not bother anybody.

PC: They were always good dogs

LL: And Flashy wouldn’t have bothered

PC: No

LL: We had a pastor at Saint Bridget’s who had an Irish setter, and we had an Irish Setter name Flashy and Mother had a German maid called Barbara.

PC: (unison) Barbara Kestle.

LL: Barbara. And someone stole Flashy or Flashy got hit by a car. Anyway Flashy was gone and Father Cortican, not Cortican

PC: Yes, Father Cortican, lovely lovely Irish Setter

LL: And he was walking his Irish Setter and Barbara Kestle absolutely almost took him down with a knife, calling him, “You got my Flashy! You got our Flashy! You got our Flashy! And we had to practically get this poor woman off this poor pastor who was like… (laughter) “I don’t have your Flashy! I have an Irish Setter! That was Mother’s, one of Mother’s German maids that attacked.

PC: Well, it was so easy for Mother to bring German help over because she spoke German.

CS: Is she or her family from Germany?

PC: Oh yes. Mother’s family was born in Germany.

CS: What part of Germany?

PC: Mother was from Frankfurt and her father was from the southern part, Lake

Constance Bodensee.

CS: Did you have any holidays that were special in your family or any special family traditions?

PC: They were all special. I mean just—there wasn’t one that stood out.

LL: No, every holiday was so big.

PC: Everything was big.

LL: No, actually every holiday. Probably Christmas with the open house Christmas Eve each year—that was just a tradition.

CS: For your family?

PC: And friends

LL: And neighbors

LL: And neighbors and relatives. Anyone. Come one, come all.

LL: I would say that Christmas Eve was probably the biggest. The biggest. Easter, there might have been vacations away. But they were…it was all family and just a lot of fun.

RE: I think that your version of your mother and father’s twenty-fifth anniversary dinner…

PC: What was that? At Columbo’s?

RE: They were caught in a snowstorm somewhere and were trying to get home for dinner?

PC:I thought the twenty first—um

RE: And you had painted your mother’s picture as a gift—it’s from the cover of…

LL: Oh yes! I remember painting that. I have it at home. Mother had it here. But I don’t recall them not getting home for a party or late for a party.

RE They got…

LL: Oh! They got there. That could be…

RE: Lizanne had gotten steaks—you told me this—from the Vesper House

LL: From the Vesper Club? Probably. Could have been.

RE: And your father would call and say “We’re stuck here.” It was a terrible snowstorm.

LL: Well, their anniversary is

PC: Is the 31st or the 30th of January, sure.

RE: He would call and say, “We’re this far,” and you would put the steaks away and then get them out again.

LL: Well I do remember one—you’re talking about one special party. Speaking of that one special party, Mother was having Thanksgiving. And this was after Grace and Ranier were married. And just about two years later—‘cause Grace and Chrissy have pictures of it and they were tiny. So it was like in ’59.

PC: Yes

LL: And Mother said, “I will have a party for the whole family.” And Grace and Ranier and everybody were over there and the whole family, and some friends I guess. And Mother set-up the whole thing. And I’m smelling (sniffing sound) and I said to Peggy “Do you smell…”

PC: Well I had come from my house. And wasn’t there all afternoon.

LL: Yeah

LL: No. So I’m saying to Peggy—we were all there having cocktails or something—“I don’t smell any turkey.” I said, “Mother!” (Imitating Mother) “Oh! I put the turkey in a long time ago.” And I’m (sniffing sound) (Loud voice) Don’t smell the turkey…!

So I walk in the kitchen and open up the thing and I say…I come out to Peggy and say, “My god Peggy, she hasn’t turned on the oven! Now what do we do?”

PC: Or it was just warm or something—turned it down or something or

LL: It was naked as the day it was born—let’s put it that way. (laughter)

And we’re about ready to eat, you know, in a half hour and I said,

“Peggy for heaven’s sake’s what are we gonna do?” So Peggy said, “Don’t worry about a thing. I cooked”

PC: I had just baked a turkey and since the children were home, you know, for vacation, I wanted to have a turkey at home. So mine had just come out of the oven. I went right around the corner to my house yanked—took mother’s – threw it in my oven and brought her mine.

LL: Something was turned down because she wouldn’t be that dumb, you know.

PC: No! (laughter) “You wouldn’t have been that dumb, Mother! No!”

CS: Were you both married here in the Falls?

PC:No, I was married in Pleasantville, New Jersey. It was during the summer and Lizanne was married

LL: I was married in Saint Bridget’s.

PC: Saint Bridget’s, yes.

LL: Oh! I have—we were married—Grace had just won the Oscar and she was one of my bridesmaids. She was my maid of honor and Peggy was my matron of honor. And, of course, knowing that she was coming to the, you know, church, there were a lot of people outside. Don and his brother, my husband Don, and his brother, who was the best man, pulled up in front of Saint Bridget’s and as the limousines were pulling up or cars were pulling up, people would go look in to see who was there. They looked in and saw Don and Tom, they said, “Oh they’re nobody.” (laughter) and Don said “Aw, yeah, well…” (said derisively) (laughter)

RE: “I haven’t laughed so hard in years!”

PC: Well Fordie used to take all our, um, he loved to travel all the brides. Fordie was the colored man that we had, you know, that we mentioned before. And when one the Becker girls got married, going down Midvale Avenue to St. Bridget’s, naturally, it was on the right and he stopped there on the right. Well, I guess he wanted to be headed up the other way—but did not go in—he took the bride, delivered the bride in the lovely big car but he thought he—it was a Saturday—and he had a shopping list for Mother. Down, well, at the old Falls Theatre, it was at the point, it was a supermarket.

LL: Oh! Is that where Falls Theatre was? The old supermarket.

PC: Oh sure.

LL: Oh, that’s the Falls Theatre—uh, okay.

PC: So Fordie goes in—he figures the wedding, the wedding will take about twenty minutes, fifteen or twenty minutes and he does all the shopping. In the front seat of the car he comes back to pick up the bride and groom to take them to the reception—and a great big stalk of celery out of the top of the big bag on the front seat of the car—and the beautiful bride in the back.

CS: With the stalk of celery?

PC: With the celery. Didn’t bother Ford. The bride’s mother did not go for that too much.

Laughter.

LL: Ford was a classic. Everybody in the Falls knew Ford. He shopped at the hardware store at Ridge and Midvale – southwest corner there – he used to take me when I was a little kid and stand aside and going out with Fordie was the best treat in the world and he used to run around…Everyone knew Fordie.

PC: Do you remember Paddy Melon (?) the milkman? How about Peg Filoon? That’s a real old one. Snow White McCow (?)

CS: Who were they?

PC: Real old people in the Falls. They were our father’s friends. Really back – you’d have to find some people – and who used to sleep in the cars at…

LL: Porkie.

PC: Porkie slept at John Cassidy’s garage. Is Cassidy’s garage still there?

LL: Well the garage, but Cassidy isn’t there, but East Falls Garage is there. Right on Ridge Avenue next to the East Falls Tavern it was – the back faces the river.

RE: Not the corner?

LL: It’s right behind where the post office is now. Right behind – the post office would back up to Cassidy’s Garage going towards the river. And a lot of people used to sleep in Cassidy’s old junk cars. The wrecks! The cars that were wrecked and all. So he would have permission to get all the wrecked cars that were on East River Drive. So he would stay there, and all his friends who didn’t have much of a home life…If they had had a little too much…

PC: Porkie used to sleep there. Charming Porkie.

LL: They would sleep in Cassidy’s wrecks.

RE: My word.

LL: Well, Daddy knew everyone in East Falls and Kell knew pretty nearly everyone too. He’d go down that street….now there is a little street near – across the street from….I don’t know the name of it – where the photographer lived? What’s his name?

PC: Mr. Brownworth!

RE: Mucky Brownworth.

CS: He was a photographer?

PC: A photographer; a family photographer. And he lived right in a little alley almost across from the church – there’s a little alley that goes up that way and they had a street fair.

RE: They still do?

LL: I don’t know, but they did about seven years ago.

RE: Arnold Street, is it?

LL: Could be. And they had a street fair there and Don and I went by there and had the best time. And that was recently.

RE: Brownworth was about two doors down from Arnold Street….and what a marvelous photographer he was! Everybody went to him.

LL: He took my babies pictures, he took my wedding pictures. His father – oh, he was a nut, his father. Well, he’s a nice nut. I don’t think his son would think anything different of him – he was a marvelous nut. I mean, that’s a compliment.

RE: And Stan Smith

LL: Oh, Stan Smith and Odda

RE: And Midge, used to go down regularly and meet with Mucky Brownworth and they would have a bull session all the time and they would have a few drinks and they would talk and that was a regular meeting place.

LL: That’s weird. Can you see those three together?

CS: Where did the name Mucky come from?

LL: I never knew that. His son was Teddy. He’s Theodore and his son is Teddy, but Mucky is probably a local name that I didn’t quite know.

RE: Best in the world! They don’t make ‘em like him.

PC: And our cousins, the Kruskow’s, used to live next door to St. Bridget’s, right on that side of the street.

RE: What street?

PC: Just between there and the post office. And we were always there on a Sunday.

LL: And then on the other side of the post office was Uncle Charlie’s.

LL: Alma Morani has her office in one of them.

PC: Is she still there?

LL: Yeah, she’s still there. Then where the post office used to be, I don’t know who is there. I think that is closed. I don’t think there’s anything in there.

RE: No, it’s been for sale.

LL: It’s been for sale for years.

PC: And then the church took over. Charles Kelly sold his house to the church. To St. Bridget’s.

CS: Were there any nice places to eat in East Falls?

PC: There were.

LL: I never went to a restaurant in East Falls ever. Oh, pardon me, the Falls Tavern, once or twice, in later years.

PC: We always went over to the Bala Golf Club. East Falls had a big tournament at Bala Golf Club each year.

LL: They put a great big sign across the street. It was a big tournament.

RE: The Falls used to be very, very interested in athletics. They’re no longer that way, as far as I know.

CS: All sports?

LL: All sports; definitely so. In fact they used to call it the East Falls Golf Association, but half the members never played golf, I’m sure.

CS: laughs

LL: But it was a big, big association.

PC: My father played for an East Falls teams when he was a young man. He played professional, but on a rather low level: baseball and mainly football and basketball. He would go upstate, change his name – play under a different name every week.

CS: What was the Philadelphia Canoe Club? You mentioned that earlier…

LL: Yes. My mother and her brothers were members there and we used to spend so much time on weekends and loved it, just loved it. But being away in Ocean City in the summers, we missed a great deal of what went on when children were off from school. I’m sure we would have found a million things to do in East Falls but we were away right after we got out of school.

On Memorial Day there used to be a parade in McMichael Park and they used to have the raising of the flag and the band and VFW or whatever but then after that we were never around.

PC: We weren’t around all summer.

RE: Did Fordie ever drive you kids anyplace?

PC & LL: Sure, every place. Everywhere we had to go.

Except for the gas rationing, we used the 52. He’d drive us to school.

LL: We’d walk to school.

PC: He drove us also.

LL: Well, except in the bad weather, he’d drive us to school but you couldn’t get to the school on the 52. We’d walk to school but Fordie would drive us to other places. But going to the movies or up to Germantown he never would drive us. He would take us places in town and things like that. There used to be little things at the Penn AC on Saturday afternoons.

CS: At the what?

LL: At the Penn Athletic Club. It was a wonderful family club on the corner of 18th and Locust. A wonderful club.

PC: Swimming pools. Squash courts.

LL: He would drive us down there. Anywhere we needed to go where you couldn’t take the 52.

RE: That was the trolley.

PC: Don’t they have something like that now?

RE: It’s a bus. It’s the K bus. Not a trolley anymore.

LL: Cause I know I’ve seen people standing on the corner at McIlvaine’s, sure.

CS: When you were teenagers, did you date any local boys?

LL: Surely. Our neighborhood was filled with boys and we were never at a loss for a date. And with Penn Charter so close by. And Germantown Academy so nearby. We had no problems.

PC: And the very good friend of Kell’s that lived on Henry Avenue – the Lukens? That lived on Henry Avenue? There were many people who lived on Henry Avenue.

LL: No, Matt lived on Midvale.

RE: The Lukens manufactured…

LL: But then he married….and Tommy Kayon. He married Barbara something who lived on Henry Avenue.

PC: She lived on Vaux Street, dear.

LL: Dr. Vogel. At the end of Henry Avenue.

PC: She lived on Vaux street, dear.

LL: And how about your friend…(?)

PC: Across from the Godfreys on Warden Drive.

LL: I dated all the guys who lived on Warden Drive. There were an awful lot of kids around there. It was amazing that that street – I guess everybody had children at the same time – they were all the same age.

RE: There was a period when all the press and magazine articles said “Have Babies.” Not in those words, but it was pushed that this was the thing to do – have a baby. And it was approved of. And so there was a big baby boom then.

LL: Except in my year…

RE: Now in my day, the ‘20s, they called it “getting caught” so that expresses how they felt about having babies…

LL: I was born in 1933. I was informed later on in life that that was the lowest – until the last couple of years – the lowest birth rate – because that was during the Depression – and that was the lowest birthrate year of anything.

DW: My mother was born in England, Yorkshire, 1902. My father was born in Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia 1899. I was born in 1931 in East Falls in Women’s Medical College Hospital

KH:When did your parents move to East Falls?

DW: They moved to East Falls soon after they were married in 1929. They moved to lower Queen Lane, the 3400 block of Queen Lane proper, just before

you get to the corner of 35th Street and Thomas Mifflin School. When those houses were built they bought a brick row house – 3461 Queen Lane.

KH:When did your parents move to Penn Street?

DW: They stayed on Queen Lane and moved to 3019 Queen Lane in May of 1943. I was born in 1931 and moved when I was 12 years old but it was still in East Falls.

KH:What was the age of those houses at that time, were they built in the early 1900’s?

DW: Yes, they were, I don’t remember the exact date, I might be able to look it up, but it was the early 1900’s. It was not a new house but we bought it from its original owner (Roy Miller)

KH:How did they happen to choose East Falls as a place to live?

DW: There were lots of reasons. My dad was an electrical engineer and he worked for the Electric Storage Battery Company at 19th and Allegheny so it was not that far away and it was a nice place. It was a new neighborhood, new houses, and there were lots of friends there and family because my dad’s father lived on Wayne Avenue right near Coulter Street so they were not that far away and my mother’s parents lived up in Mt. Airy near Carpenter Woods.

KH:Tell me about your family, did you have siblings, what did your Dad do….What was life like in your house?

DW: Dad, as I said, was an electrical engineer. He had gone to Germantown Friends School and graduated in 1918. He took courses at what is now Drexel. At the same time he got a job at Electric Storage Battery Company and stayed there 25 years. My mother had been an executive secretary. She was the secretary at the British Consulate in Philadelphia. And they both had lots of family still in England. All four of my grandparents were born in England. One time when dad was a bachelor and going over to visit his family as a young man, he had to get a visa in those days at the British Consulate, he met this young secretary and that was my mother.

In my family, I am the oldest of three boys. My brother, Gordon, is a year and a half younger than I am and Edward (Ted) is six years younger than that, and no sisters.

KH:What sorts of activities did you engage in as a young boy in East Falls?

DW: In those days nobody went very far. Our family was pretty much middle class. We went to the New Jersey seashore in the summer. As a small boy my Grandfather West used to rent a cottage in Connecticut. Vacation became very nice when my grandfather began to rent a cottage. That was great for us. He was a widower by that time. He put up with having my mother and three small boys in the house with him. He wanted company, I’m not quite sure why he wanted company, our company, but he did.

Activities around the neighborhood were very focused. I like to think of Midvale and Coulter Street as being the axis of my early life. We lived at the end of Queen Lane. The axis extended all the way to Germantown Friends School where I went to school and to St Luke’s Episcopal Church across Germantown Ave. from it, where my paternal grandfather was the organist and choirmaster for 55 years. We boys sang in his choir which was, in its time, the finest English men and boys choir in Philadelphia. So we went from one to the other. Being in the choir was a very demanding thing. Because, except during summer vacations, we had rehearsals Tuesday and Thursday afternoon at 4:30 and Friday night with men from 7:30 to 9. And two services on Sunday, 11 o’clock and evensong at 4:30 or 8:00 depending on the season. That took up a lot of time but that was a great activity. And very, very good training. Certainly by the time I got to Germantown Friends School, Mary Brewer {ed. note. Mary Brewer was the long time Choral director at GFS} was very glad to see me. I think it was because I knew what I was doing in the choir and I eventually became the president of the choir. But, so that was one thing,

The other activities were largely kind of around the neighborhood, what we did as boys. There were several vacant lots in in East Falls that we used to frequent. There was one behind the church at the corner of Penn Street and Conrad. I think it’s a Baptist church that sits on the corner at Midvale so that was a place that we played, There was another vacant lot, now built on, at the corner of Vaux Street and Midvale Avenue.

KH:What did you do on those vacant lots?

DW: Well, on the church lot we played baseball, we played ball games. The other one was a kind of wild lot, all overgrown. Big trees and we used to climb the trees and we had adventures there. We played cowboys and Indians and things like that (small gang games)

KH: Were your friends from up and down the block?

DW: Friends were from up and down the block, yes, and we went to the library, my mother took us early on to the East Falls Library on the corner of Warden Drive and Midvale and got us membership cards and enrolled us in summer reading programs which helped to make us pretty good readers, actually from an early age, actually before GFS.

Then we played in the back alleys. On those blocks the houses had a central alley leading to the garages. That’s where we played stickball. Or halfball as it is called. Played with a broomstick. You take a tennis ball, or a small rubber ball and cut it in half. And you pitch it and you make it soar and you have to hit it straight up the alley because if it goes in a yard it’s an out. That was a very active game and it was played… in those days we had bubblegum cards of baseball players. We chewed a lot of gum just to get the cards, and then we made up the teams from ones that we had been fortunate enough to get and we would trade them to get rare ones. Everyone wanted to get Ted Williams and Jackie Robinson so there was a lot of trading and you made up your team of 9 players picked from the best cards you had and you played pretending you were Stan Musial and so on. That was a big summer fun activity.

KH:Did you ever go to the Bathey?

DW: No, I don’t ever remember going there. Swimming, we went to Alden Park, the pool there had summer memberships, for well-behaved kids. Somehow my mother got us in there. That’s where we went. It’s an indoor pool with a roll back top, or it was in those days so it was kind of half in-half out. They could fully cover it over and use it in the winter which we never did for we were only interested in using it in the summer.

KH:Have you stayed in touch with any of the boys you played stick ball with?

DW: Oh, sure. Across the back fence on Penn Street, across the alley, we had the Richardson boys – Dickie, was my age, a year older actually. And his brother Tony was my brother Gordie’s age. We were very close to them. Jimmy Trimble, who later became an Episcopal priest and for some years was the chaplain at Episcopal Academy, very nice guy. The Tolan family lived up at the top of the hill and the Boyer family, Jack Boyer, and these were close-by people.

Now, once school started for me, I went to GFS in Kindergarten so Sept. 1936 my dad put me in the Model A and drove me over to take me to kindergarten and we drove up in front of Miss Comfort’s kindergarten and I jumped out and ran in and that was certainly where I wanted to be. I couldn’t understand the little girl who was lying outside on the flagstones, kicking and screaming that she didn’t want to be left there. She got over it. So, school became a very occupying thing.

KH:How did you get back and forth to school?

DW: Dad dropped us off. As got a little bit older we became patrons of the PRT, Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company later the PTC and the 52 trolley. That was a trolley car in those days that went from Ridge Avenue over Midvale and Coulter, turned up Wayne Avenue to Chelten then went east on Chelten and I think after that after a long time, it fell off the edge of the earth I never knew where it went ultimately.

When it got to Wayne Ave it shared the tracks with the 53 trolley which was a newer, more modern trolley. The 52s were old boxes. The 53 went all the way up Wayne Avenue from Wayne Junction to Mt. Airy and at the end of that line was where my maternal grandparents near Carpenter Woods so we used that one.

KH:But you had a model A…

DW: Yes, it was a model A, Ford, of course, a 1936. Because what happened was that my Grandfather West bought a new car every several years and they passed the old one down. First to my father and then to his younger brother who lived up in New Jersey. A lot of mileage on a car…a lot of time on a car.

KH:Did you walk a lot?

DW: Oh yes, because we would get off the trolley car at the corner of Wayne and Coulter and walk across Green Street to get to school. And back the other way. Rode the trolley.

It was fun. I always tell my kids, you know, we were isolated in those days dealing with the depression and the war people didn’t move around a lot. Gas rationing and the roads weren’t that good, I remember driving to Connecticut. That was a long trip. They did start to build the Merritt Parkway before that and we used that and I remember each year when Gordon and I were small, so we’re talking about the 1930’s and 40’s here, each year when we went up we were excited to see how much further they had gone moving north and east toward New England. We always decided what was the best looking bridge.

I should say that East Falls had a dividing line in our lives, it was 35th Street, Conrad Street, pretty much. We didn’t go down and play below that. When they built the Mifflin School we used to play in the lot there, the playground, quite a lot.

KH:Do you remember what was in place of the Mifflin School?

DW: I don’t remember what was there before.

KH:Did you shop in the lower Falls?

DW: Yes, shopping went sort of like this…There wasMatragrano, the tailor and dry cleaner down below the station on the left hand side. There was the place my father was always going, Falls Hardware that was on the corner of Ridge and Midvale, a big old building that is still there. That was the Falls Hardware. That was a really good hardware store. There was no Home Depot or anything like that. Sears was out in the northeast. That was a long trip, if you wanted hardware that was where you went.

Food shopping was interesting in those days. There weren’t any super markets. I remember when Penn Fruitcame along at Chelten and Wayne. And there was something called the American Store which became Acme. My mother did our shopping. There was a store named Sowden family store, down 35th street it was getting close to where the Hohenadel brewery was, does that mean anything to you? (affirmative noises) That was my first beer, a Hohenadel beer. Mother used to go down there to shop and the Sowden family knew her. And took good care of her. A younger son, Edward Sowden was breaking into the business and he was the delivery guy. He would bring mother’s order back. So, that was groceries except that the huckster came around with a truck up the back alleys once a week. He would beep the horn and people knew he would be there because he came at the same time each week. Mother would go out and pick over everything that was on the truck if it was good, fresh produce.

Another place for shopping, there was a bakery, called Haasis it was over Queen Lane between Morris and Pulaski and it was a good bakery and had very good ice cream. Milk, our milk was delivered by Holiday Dairy, the Dearnley family which had GFS connections and they owned the Dearnley Mill on East Chelten Avenue but they also owned a dairy farm somewhere out in Montgomery County. They had a delivery fellow named Bob and Bob drove the truck and brought the milk and the bottles were delivered to the back door.

KH:So it wasn’t delivered by horse?

DW: We had horse drawn things but I know the milk was delivered by truck. It had to come a rather long distance.

KH:Where was the Dearnley Mill?

DW: East Chelten Avenue, east of Germantown Avenue, about where the Reading Railroad crosses, just before or just after that, the bridge

KH:What kind of mill was it?

DW: It was sort of a textile mill. My mother’s younger brother became their plant manager after some years and stayed with them for quite a while. I think Betty Dearnley was at GFS in the early to mid 40’s.

One of the things that happened in those early years when we were playing around was the almost annual polio scare. That was really terrible because we couldn’t go to the swimming pool and school didn’t open. So, my mother and father encouraged us to go into the newspaper business. I made you copies of three editions, It is called The Suburban Weekly and we charged 2 cents per copy. I was editor this week, there are two of mine here. We took turns being editor between Jimmy Trimble myself and my brother Gordon.

This one was September 12, 1941 so I was delayed going into fifth grade, Miss Katherine Dobson’s fifth grade. Delayed because:

“Schools Delay Opening

Many schools in and around Philadelphia are postponing the opening of the first term as a precaution to prevent any further spread of infantile paralysis. Penn Charter and Germantown Friends’ School will open on the 24th instead of the 17th. Pupils of Mifflin School who have had their parents’ permission sent to the school office, are allowed to remain out until September 19.”

We started to do this. We collected the information and wrote it up. My mother did the typing for us (we tried to do it). Then we would hop in the car with my dad. (She would type this on a stencil) and we would drive over to St. Luke’s Church, to the office where Mrs. Curet (sp, pronounced Cure-ay) would let us print copies of this newspaper Then we would come home and go around and sell them for 2 cents.

We collected information and interviewed people at the same time we were selling the newspapers and delivering them. A one-stop operation! (chuckle) Anyway, that was typical of a couple of summers. When we needed something to do at the end of the summer and some of our other activities were curtailed. Mr Ed, (Sowden) who delivered our groceries is mentioned in there, his wife had a baby.

{ed note: Copies of this newspaper are included in the paper file along with this transcript}

KH:Tell us about your career. What did you do after you finished at GFS?

DW: I went to Princeton. I was enrolled in the Holliway program of the Navy ROTC. Which was very generous because they paid all of my tuition, all my fees, my books and 50 bucks a month which was quite a lot of money in those days. In exchange for that, at the end of my four years at Princeton I was commissioned and served 2 years in the navy.

Sue and I became married and we lived in Newport, Rhode Island because that’s where the destroyer base was. Then we began to have children and when I was out of the Navy we came back to Philadelphia. We lived in Plymouth Meeting, her parents lived in Blue Bell so we were close to them and I went to work for Philadelphia National Bank. I went to Wharton School at night to learn accounting and commercial law and things.

I was in the commercial lending department of Philadelphia National Bank and used to commute back and forth on the bus. That seemed sort of slow moving and so after two years I left. I had a lot of friends in the Pharmaceutical industry and Smith, Klein and French was a very good company in those days and so I was persuaded to apply and went to work for Smith Klein. I went into market research which was a pretty new field at that time and they were very far ahead in that, as were other pharmaceuticals. Got introduced to computers at the very beginning stage, then.

And after a couple of years of that, four of us decided to, had an opportunity to, take over a small company and run it and it was market research in the pharmaceutical industry. It belonged to Sydney Leawho was GFS class of 1928 or 29. He was a very wealthy guy. He just wanted an office to go to and gave us control of the company and let us run it. He was a wonderful guy. Unfortunately he died after a while but the four of us took care of the company and eventually sold it to a larger company. I think two good things came together in that business. One was market research, which was the discipline and field of business after WWII, and computers. One thing we did that helped to make us was that we began to computerize our reports and then we syndicated the sales of our reports to all different companies. We did different kinds of research so we did product research and we did opinion research eventually audited sales for wholesale outlets, there was plenty of that to do. First we rented time on the U of P computers and then we moved to The Franklin Institute and then we got big enough to buy our own computer and we moved our business out of Chestnut Hill and into Flourtown where we bought a building belonging to the Keasbey and Madison Company. Then eventually we sold the company to a larger global company that still exists, IMS. When I got out of it, I didn’t really want to work for a third company. I got out of it when Dun & Bradstreet bought IMS. Time to go.

KH: What about your brothers?

DW: Well, Gordon worked for Corning Glass. He went to Trinity College and then went to Wharton School and then to Corning Glass in the early days of television making television tubes out of glass. And then after a time, he got tired of living in Corning, New York which I can well understand, and he wanted to come back to Philadelphia, so Sydney Lea knew Otto Haas and got my brother a job at Rohm & Haas where he stayed for a number of years, he’s retired now.

Younger brother did a whole lot of things. He was not successful at GFS, he was a little distracted by the presence of so many females. My mother and Burton Fowler {ed. Note: headmaster at GFS} eventually decided he would be better off somewhere else. So one of our back fence neighbors was Jack Gummere (headmaster at Penn Charter) who had that tennis court (we could use that tennis court) and so Dad went over and talked to him and Dr. Gummere said, “Send him over, I’ll talk to him.” So we sent Ted over there and then Dr. Gummere said, “I’ll take him!” And that was the admissions process. He did all right, he graduated and he went to Penn. And then he did a variety of things after that, but he was never really well physically and eventually he developed diabetes and he died in ’05 which was 8 years ago.

The tennis court ran between three houses, the Gummere’s and the one between you and the Gummere’s (ed. That would be behind 3026 and 3024 and 3020 Midvale)

KH:I thought that was part of the development of the whole block when those houses were built, called Queen Lane Manor.

DW: Queen Lane Manor, I refer to that in the newspaper we referred to Queen Lane Manor, my parents did, with no precise definition, but I would say, it included al the newer houses and that was the dividing line at 35st street. And the other side would be Wissahickon and as far as School Lane. Anything with in that somebody might have called Queen Lane Manor but I never saw it on a map.

I’ll tell you another interesting thing we did. We did the newspaper. One of our neighbor’s families were the Kelly’s. Jack Kelly, (John B) and his lovely family of children including Grace who was a little older than we are. She didn’t pay attention to us although we used to sneak in and use their basketball court and that was okay but she never came out. But during the war John B. Kelly was appointed to something considered to be important, he was leader of the Philadelphia area Home Defense when we got into WWII. He was supposed to coordinate all of these efforts. There were air raid wardens. My father was active in something called the Chestnut Hill Home Defense which met at the CH Academy where they actually had a pistol and rifle range. He used to go up there and practice and pretend so that if the Germans came they could take care of them. And they bought new bicycles which I was very jealous because they had gear shifts and I never had a bike with a gear shift before and they had headlights on them and they had a green plastic thing on the top so that if the German planes came over the light wouldn’t shine up tell them they were there. And lots of stuff like that.

At any rate, we thought this was very important and one of the things we ought to do with our newspaper is that we ought to interview this man. So my father had some connection with him through Chestnut Hill Home Defense and he arranged for us one Saturday morning to go up and see Mr. Kelly. So a little band of us, I think three of us, (Dick Richardson, myself and probably Gordon) walked up to the Kelly red brick house. We rang the bell and it was opened and we asked if we could see Mr. Kelly and we were escorted in to the sitting room and there he was and we sat down and we talked to him. And we asked him what he was doing with his Home Defense and he went on and on and on. I’m sorry that I don’t have a copy, but we had a nice time talking to him and he was very nice to us and he saw us out and we went home and wrote up our scoop. We scooped the Ledger, the Philadelphia evening paper. We scooped them because the next week the Ledger had more or less the same article that we had about Mr. Kelly and the Home Defense.

KH:What else do you remember about life in East Falls during the war?

DW: Well, gas rationing was very limiting to everyone’s range of motion. So we didn’t go to Connecticut in the summer. My parents, my grandparents had a lot of family in England involved in the war and I remember that my Grandfather West had a great big radio with a short wave thing on it and he listened to the news and he listened every evening to hear Big Ben tolling, probably 7pm, listened to the news. It was an addition to the news.

My Grandmother Tattersfield, my mother’s mother, and all the ladies in the family belonged to Daughters of the British Empire and they tried to do good things during the war. One of the things they did was arrange hospitality for British sailors who were coming into Philadelphia, both warships and traders and we had some of those people come and stay with us. One fellow, I remember, Fred Moore, was a lieutenant on a merchant ship and he came back several times. I think he was interested in my aunt. But we never saw him after the war. One of the exciting things was a British Navy cruiser, the HMS Exeter came into Philadelphia one time and was open to touring. Our family went down to visit the Exeter and it was not long after that the Exeter and two of her smaller light cruiser escorts, the HMS Ajax and the Achilles sank the German battleship the Graf Spec and drove it into Montevideowhere it was scuttled and the commanding officer of the Graf Spec committed suicide in Montevideo. It was tremendously exciting we were on that ship a month or so before. So we followed the Exeter. Eventually it was sent out to the Pacific and was found and sunk by the Japanese.

KH:How did you communicate with your families in England?

DW: We got letters, some of them censored. My Grandfather West was a very fine musician, a very fine organist. He was admitted, as a young Englishman to the Royal College of Organists at the age of 17, at that time the youngest ever admitted. This got him a bit of attention and at that point his parents died, separately but they were older and they died. He was still quite young.

St Luke’s in Germantown was then quite a wealthy, white church, all white. They had started a mission on Germantown Avenue. St. Barnabas mission was an African American branch if you will. Later on the two merged. So, my grandfather was brought to Germantown by St. Luke’s Church and he arrived on Christmas Eve 1890, got off and played his first service on Christmas Eve at the age of 18 and stayed. His principal teacher in England had a daughter that he was interested in. They stayed in touch and five years later 1895 he went back, married her and brought her and that was my grandmother. They came from Cheltenham in the west of England.

My grandfather came from all over the place because his father, my great grandfather was a Wesleyan Methodist missionary and spent ten years in Tongo. He took a wife out there with him and had five children and eventually she died and then my grandfather re-married and had 2 more sons and the elder of them was my grandfather. I think their deaths are what probably compelled my grandfather to move out and come here. He didn’t regret it at all. He thought he had done the right thing.

KH:So both sides of your family….

DW: Yes, my mother’s family all came from Yorkshire. There they had been in the mill business, the textile mills. One branch of them became wool importers. They bought wool from all over the world, had an office in India (now Pakistan), They bought wool and shipped it and sold it to the mills and that family came to Philadelphia in 1924. Actually they came before that started and my grandfather came over and joined his two uncles who had started the business in Philadelphia. He came and joined them in 1924. My mother was the eldest of four children. She was then 21.

KH:Where there any organizations in the Falls that you or your parents belonged to?

DW: Hmmm….my mother and father did not belong to the Cricket Club. I don’t remember any.

KH:Do you remember attending any movies?

DW: Yes, movies, that was a big thing, we remember very well when they built the Alden Theater. Before then we went to the moves but we had to take the 52 trolley and get over to Germantown where there were four theaters. The Orpheum on Chelten Avenue, the Colonial on that street, the Band Box a little bit further and the Vernon, a newer theater, was right next to the bank building at School Lane and Germantown Avenue. It is gone now. In fact, they are all gone now. The Colonial was an old vaudeville theater. It was a big stage balcony thing. The Orpheum on Chelten Avenue was a nice big theater I would say it was probably built in the 20’s and the Vernon was quite new, it was the last of the four built.

Germantown was quite a center then with department stores and it was at one point, before the suburban department stores happened. Strawbridge and Clothier began by putting one in Jenkintown and one in Ardmore that was the beginning of it. Up until that time the center of Germantown was the second largest shopping center to Center City Philadelphia in the metropolitan area. Rowells and Allens, of course, Jimmy Jones, those three were department stores. Jimmy Jones had the main story (where Gaffney’s now is at the corner of Germantown and Coulter St.) and then it had two of the other corners. The GFS corner was the Coulter Inn which on the ground floor was a pharmacy And then the other two corners, the one where the GFS math building is was the children’s store. Then where the parking lot is was the shoe store. And they were all Jimmy Jones. They got a lot of GFS business.

KH:Did you ever go to the movies in the Falls on Midvale Avenue?

DW: The Alden – that is the only one that I remember. I remember when they built that it was a little after they built the Mifflin School. The Alden had no balcony it was a one floor thing, more like the Vernon was, a smaller modern theater. We did go there and see movies. The Saturday matinee most favored was the Colonial in Germantown because they had all these serial things and besides the featured film, a doubleheader, it had all these other things. The latest episode of whatever…Tom Mix and all kinds of things… anything you could think of, even the latest news. We were glad when they built the Alden Theater. We didn’t have to take a trolley to see the movies.

KH:How much did it cost to go to a movie?

DW: 11 cents

KH:Did you use the profits from the newspaper to go to the movies?

DW: (Laugh) Yes, or from choir money because we got paid to be in the choir.

KH:That was a lot of work.

DW: It was a lot of work but the rate of pay was not very good. You went in at age six and then would be an exploited intern under my grandfather’s thumb for at least a year before you were allowed to take part in the service in the church. During that time you would be paid 25 cents a month plus your car fare and those were pressing times so there were a lot of boys who wanted to sing in the choir and you could only do that if they had their carfare paid. So a big part of the expense of it was carfare.

KH:Do you remember going to the Old Academy?

DW: I don’t remember going.

KH:Did you go to the Bathey?

DW: We knew it was there but we didn’t swim in it.

KH:Did you make use of Fairmount Park?

DW: Yes, one of the things we did a lot as boys when we got older would be to go to Fairmount Park. We did that by going down Conrad Street across Germantown Avenue (must mean Midvale Avenue) up Warden Drive and then up where we used to have a sledding hill and cross over and go down Gypsy Lane and we’d cross down there and find the bridge and cross over into the woods.

Of course, we were inspired by Joe Cadbury (science teacher in the lower School at Germantown Friends School) We were animal collectors. We were looking for snakes and salamanders and frogs and tadpoles and turtles. One time Gordon and I got a pair of box turtles and we took them home to 3461 Queen Lane which had a front yard not bigger than this room, probably the width of the lot. And we put the turtles in there and thought they would stay and then we found we had to fence them in to keep so they didn’t wander. So they stayed and the next thing you knew there were eggs so we took them to Joe Cadbury. He’s one of my strongest memories…early morning bird walks in Awbury…we always wanted to get there and see him because he would come around in the morning before school to see what was in the nets, take it out, band it and let it go. {There were nets set during bird migrations to catch birds, band them and release them} So we always wanted to get there and see what he had. He had this somewhat circular arrangement of the chairs in class and he used to pass things around. I remember one time he had a king snake and he told us we should get used to snakes and eventually we got to the point where we could pick the snake up and weren’t bothered by that at all and I never have been bothered by snakes since. So, yes, we did go down into Fairmount Park.

KH:Were there fellow Culprits in these adventures?

DW: Yes, just immediately around the house.

KH:Did you go to McDevitt/Dobson Field? Which is over near Scott’s Lane and is now baseball and soccer.

DW: I don’t know that.

KH:Were there activities at the library?

DW: There were activities. I don’t remember any sort of group activities. We went there mainly we would get in to see how many books you could read and get on your charts and get stickers on. So it was a game to see who got more stuff, stars, than the other guys did. We did not have a great deal of contact with public school kids. Around us there were lots of families with kids going to GFS and Penn Charter and I think that pretty well ended at the bottom of Queen Lane, at 3600. I don’t remember people coming to GFS from the other side. Now, of course, it was ethnically, it was all white it was Italian, Polish and Roman Catholic who went to St. Bridget’s. That was the dividing line – Conrad – that was the equivalent of 35th Street.

KH:When you were there, were the (street) numbers still in operation?

DW: Yes, I recall calling it 35th Street and/or Conrad Street.

A very good thing that happened in these years living down there was the building of Mifflin School out of whatever had been there before this I don’t remember clearly. I guess the WPA was good forlots of guys. It was very exciting for us. Our most adventurous years, what we needed to do was to climb on this thing. There were two things we did to climb one was to get up on the wall that goes up around the playground and there is a fence on top of that– and we would walk on the edge and hang onto the fence and go on around and that was a trip. I fell off it once and fortunately the only thing I did was sprain my ankle.

I remember going to Germantown. I was in second grade at GFS. My teacher that year was Miss Hintze – she had come in because Miss Dorothy Durling was ill. She was a very nice teacher. We really liked her. She was much younger. Miss Hintze had to carry me piggyback out to the playground for a while because of the ankle I sprained falling off that wall but that didn’t stop us because once they got that building up the other thing we did which was much worse was that we went up on the ledge that goes around the outside of the building along Wayne Avenue (must mean Midvale Avenue).

The brick came up to a certain point and then there was a kind of a molding or white concrete ledge that goes around the corner, but you didn’t have a fence to hold onto. So, it was much more dangerous but I didn’t fall off. Some kids did. That was very exciting stuff.

KH:There must have been a lot of big machinery around.

DW: When they were building it there was. It was very exciting when it was being built.

KH:And there is behind that, still a ledge which is called the Hidden Rock Garden with lots of interesting trees.

DW: Yes, they are on the Midvale Avenue downhill side because the playground goes beyond the building and creates that wedge and at the far end of it on the downhill side down near the railroad there is a way out down there and it’s called the arboretum or something.

KH:One thing I’ve read about the Falls was the Sunday School picnics. They seemed to involve the various churches in the Falls… picnics and parades

DW: This would all have involved churches down in the Falls, below Conrad, I would say. Because, of course, we were very much attached to St. Luke’s. Later on, for a time, after my grandfather died, and my voice changed and I was no longer a soprano, we went to Church of the Shepherd on The Oak Road.

KH: ……clothing?

DW: Clothing! My clothing, Gordon’s clothing… Big shopping thing toward the beginning of each school year when we had grown out of whatever we had before and we always went over, mother took us over to Jimmy Jones to Mrs. Flemming the lady that sold corduroy knickers. And we’d get equipped with a couple pairs of corduroy knickers every year and then we went to the shoe store, Cherry’s, and that was down Germantown Avenue almost at Armat Street and Cherries was an exciting place to go for shoes because they had one of those machines that, to see how big your feet were, X-rayed your feet you could see your toes.

KH: Were there special people, other than Mr. Kelly, you recall contributing to life in the Falls?

DW: There was Miss Dobson – she was my fifth grade teacher at GFS and she taught my father. Her first name was Catherine. She lived in Ivy Lodge on Penn Street east of Germantown. That was a den of spinsters there, all of them teachers there and she lived there. They were related to the Dobsons of East Falls. She had a brother Jim Dobson whom we knew because he had a business selling materials handling equipment. My father worked for him for a while, Very nice guy. They lived around the corner on Stokley Street in the middle of the block. They didn’t come through, didn’t have a garage; didn’t come through to the driveway. The driveway comes up to a dead end there, and there is one garage there on the left belonging to the Stricklers at that time, another GFS family. Anyway, he lived there.

KH: How about Prohibition?

DW: Yeah, by observation, because I wasn’t a drinker. I remember the first thing I had to drink was Hohenadel beer when my parents thought I was old enough. What I remember about Prohibition was that my dad used to make some wine in the basement. He used to get berries and stuff and make… and I remember my mother was always very concerned about that and especially after one of his efforts blew up in the cellar. And everything and the white walls down there was purple. It had to be cleaned up but we didn’t do that but we were told to stay away. That was definitely Prohibition.

KH: And the Depression?

DW: Yeah, it was all around.

KH: Did you know people who were out of work?

DW: Yes, I remember when my dad worked at the Electric Storage Battery Company and I was quite small every once in a while he had to go down to the office for some purpose or other, to check on experiments they were doing, some electrical thing or other on a Saturday morning . So, since I was out of school he sometimes took me down there and I remember there being strikers there and picketing and sitting on boxes with protest signs.

KH: Did your dad explain to you what that was about?

DW: Well, I knew what it was. That was evidence of hard times.

KH: Were there some important other world events, WWII and the Korean War?

DW: Well, in WWII, we’ve talked a little about that, my father was too old for that and just too young for WW I. I wasn’t around then but he actually got called in November 1918 and the armistice was called and he didn’t have to go. Then he was too old with a family and children for WW II so he didn’t experience any of that. The Korean War, I was in the service then, didn’t actually go to Korea but I was in the Atlantic, on a destroyer fleet. Our ships went to the north Atlantic, the Caribbean and a lot of time in the Mediterranean.

KH:Then another question is, holiday celebrations.

DW: We had big Christmas celebrations in both family sides, the Wests and the Tattersfields. My mother had an aunt who had a nice big house on Lincoln Drive near Carpenter Lane and they had a Christmas party. Big family things, and extended family so she would have 25 some people there and she used the porch and she used to have that set up with a long table and the dining room and she had a wonderful Christmas tree and she had gifts for everyone and the kids, when we went home, were allowed to take an ornament from the tree to take home with us. She had four turkeys and there were four of the men designated, and my father was always one of them, four fathers, to carve the turkeys.

The biggest/best one of those I remember was 1936. My grandfather had died in the summer and my grandmother was extraordinarily upset. She only came to America because her husband did. She died a British subject. She would never become naturalized. She died at 85. She was always very attached to the family in England. She knew my grandfather’s favorite sister over there, Aunt Edith, who had never married. And the year that he died, Aunt Katie was arranging her Christmas party and she decided to have a surprise for my grandmother. And she arranged to bring Aunt Edith over. Now, my grandmother had not seen Edith for a lot of years and she had just lost her husband. So what Aunt Katie did was to bring Edith over and they got a great big box and put Edith inside of the box and wrapped it all up in ribbons and everything and then Katie had a chauffeur then, a fellow who did handy stuff, and he had a hand cart thing and he put that box with Edith in it and we are all gathered around in the living room and in comes this box. A couple of the men opened it out steps Edith and my grandmother went PFUTT (fainted). It was a terrible shock. It really wasn’t a very good idea. Aunt Katie always did things in a big way. She had a great big Pierce Arrow touring car and a Scottish chauffer, Andrew, who used to drive us places when we were small and used to take us down to the sea shore on day trips to go to the beach. She would get a bunch of the family kids and their mothers and fill up… she would sit in the back seat with the ladies all sitting up and we little rugrats would be crawling around in the back of the car. And we would drive down to the seashore for the day. She always did things like that, always did things in a big way.

KH:Do you have special things you recall about the Falls?

DW: Yes, it was special because, to begin with you are three or four and you grow up you don’t forget that stuff so it has that kind of specialty. I also think it is special now because despite of all of the changes in the urban make up I don’t think East Falls has changed that much. Same kind of people. I don’t know how much diversity there is. (ed comment, there has been a gradual increase in diversity) Well, that is as it should be. When I drive through there it doesn’t seem to me that it has changed a lot. Of course there hasn’t been that much building since then.

When I was a kid around Queen Lane, the 3000 block and down to Wissahickon, there were big properties on that other side. The one across the street from us had a house behind it then a big pasture in front on Queen Lane with a few horses. Where the apartments are now. The Youngs were on the corner, that was Dr. Summers house that was there but that was the only thing, then the next thing where the Lutheran building was that was the Clarks and I think they were Clarks related to Joe Clark (former mayor). Then on the other corner the other side of Stokely Street, between Midvale and Queen Lane that was one big property, one big old colonial house where it had a three rail fence around it and they had a cow. They kept the cow we were always told so that they could just pay farm taxes. That house came down, that was Miss Newhall’s house and she was a grand dame of Germantown in those days. She had a brother. It came down in the fifties. I think that Carleton was built in the early fifties. Then the ones across from 3019 Queen Lane those came later (the apartments and the Lutheran Center, now Drexel Medical School).

In World War II my father and a bunch of his friends decided that a big war time thing we must do was we must have a victory garden. They went over and talked to the family that had the horses and they persuaded them that they didn’t need to keep the horses there they could put them somewhere else and they made arrangements to put victory gardens there and they got that whole thing from the Young’s house to Stokley Street for victory gardens they had a very busy time dividing it all up for victory gardens. We had peas, lettuce, beets, radishes, onions in the early part of the summer and then we shifted to string beans, lima beans, tomatoes, corn, squash, and cucumbers. The parcels were pretty big and very productive. Gordon and I were inducted into the weeding and the planting. Mr. James came there every day. His son was one of the organizers and he’d tell us kids what we were doing wrong and he knew a lot and we learned a lot.

Queen Lane down toward the railroad tracks was a major war defense production area. The U.S. Army Signal Corp was there, Bendix Corporation, Midvale Steel, Budd. Father’s place made storage batteries for submarines. And there was Dobson Mills (Miss Dobson’s family she lived in Ivy Lodge (E. Coulter Street).

KH:What activities did you do for fun?

DW: The Hot Shoppe at Henry and Hunting Park was a popular place to take a date after a movie. They came out and took your order and brought it and hung a tray on your car window. You didn’t even have to get out of your car.

We went to the movies.

Baseball games at Shibe Park, 22nd and Lehigh. When we were kids a great thing to do was go to a double header. Get a cheap seat and sit in the front row….see Joe Dimaggio.

The zoo was also popular, it was so close.

Amusement park….Woodside near City Line. We could see the fireworks on the 4th of July. It had rides, a ferris wheel and merry-go-round.

Mary describes working at Dobson Mills, talks of the Dobson family, and shares memories of Forest School, doctors, and life in East Falls.

CS:What kind of work did you do in the mills?

MW: I started out with sewing the numbers on the material. I had a big bolt of string around my waist. And I had fun, my sisters had fun in the mill.

CS:Your sisters also worked there?

MW: Uh-huh. For a while – but my sister worked at Wall & Ochs in town on Chestnut Street, my older sister she worked there for years and years.

CS: Which one Amy or Eva?

MW: Amy. But in a marriage, Eva married very young and she missed a lot. She really missed a lot.

CS:What do you think she missed?

MW: Well, I think she would have gone on to something better than the mill, course she had children right away, and her husband wasn’t very ambitious. And that’s sad, when you have a family and you’re not interested.

CS:She had a large family? How may were there?

MW: Yeah, Dorothy, Donald, Jean, Stanley- Stanley was killed in the war, and who was the other one? Five children. (Ed. note: the fifth child was Arlene)

CS:They were close too, weren’t they?

MW: Very Close.

CS:What age did you start working in the mills?

MW: About fourteen

CS:Same with your sisters?

MW: Mmhmm, no my sisters were, I think, they were older, but my older sister made out very good.

CS:How many years did you work there, just approximately?

MW: Well I didn’t work very long because my mother wasn’t able to do the work so I stayed home, that’s what I am, a housekeeper. Though I like it, I like it.

CS:Your sisters continued to work?

MW: Oh my older sister worked, she never married, she was an old maid, but I always felt sorry for my sister Eva because she had no life, I mean she loved her children, she took good care of them, but she had no life of her own.

CS:But she had a great sense of humor?

MW: Yes she did, yes she did. All her neighbors were nice to her.

CS:Was it hard work, working in the mills?

MW: No we had lots of fun, an awful lot of fun.

CS:David said you were a burler?

MW: Yes, after I did the string business, after I sewed the numbers on.

CS:Well what’s a burler?

MW: You pick out the flaws and they have a table that goes up this way and you have a tweezers and you pick out all the little knots and things. And then you pull them over and do them on the line, and then you pull them over and turn them. And then you had to go down the room and get another load, take it back and put it on your table and start over again.

CS:Were women’s jobs different in the mill than men’s jobs? Did they have certain things that the women did and certain things that the men did?

MW: Yeah, well the women did the burling, and the men did the machines, you know, the winding the thread. I can’t think of what it is.

CS:Were salaries different too, between the men and the women?

MW: Mmhmm

CS:Do you remember what you got?

MW: (Laughs) I didn’t get very much! But it was an experience.

CS:What were the working conditions like?

MW: Well it was nothing different, it was as likable as everywhere else. You know, they didn’t feel bad about it, it was kind of easy. They could talk on their lunch hour, they didn’t go home. They thought it was all right.

CS:You mentioned that you had a lot of fun, what kinds of things did you do?

MW: Yeah, fun. There was a little old maid there and they used to tantalize her a little bit. And she didn’t like it a bit. But they had lots of fun, and there were girls too, at this end of the table, two girls at the table. This one would be talking to you standing here about her. (Laughs). And I was like, ‘Don’t, don’t, she’ll hear you!’ And she said, ‘Ah!’

CS: So it was a good time to gossip?

MW: (Laughs). Yeah, oh yeah. But we used to go caroling up to Dobson’s. They were just a little past the women’s hospital. And they had a big stone house.( Oh look at the parade coming in! They were out camping all night those two girls!

(Laughs) So, where was I? We used to go up caroling, all the choirs went from the churches. And the men would come; there was a group with horns that would play. And we enjoyed it so much, and we walked all the way. We were walking until six o-clock in the morning!

CS: And this was Christmas Eve or just some time…?

MW: Christmas Eve. Mmhmm. And they’d give us money for the church. So one time when we were in there, Mary Elizabeth Altemus was home. And there was a boyfriend there, and she was kind of showing off. And she said, and we were all standing there, (of course we couldn’t sing when she was talking on the phone). She said, “Oh my,” she said, “you should be here,” she said, “There’s a crowd of people here; they’re looking at this strange telephone; they’ve never saw a telephone.” And that made me furious! I thought, “Oh if I could just go over to her and say ‘My dear, we’ve had a telephone for years!’ ” Laughs.

But we went there until they moved, I guess he died; I don’t remember him dying. Then he had a brother down on Allegheny Avenue.

CS: And which one was that?

MW: That was James. But this was James, oh that’s John.

CS: They always said John was the cranky one?

MW: Yeah he didn’t bother with anybody, much.

CS: At Christmastime, did the Dobson’s do anything for their employees? Did you get a bonus or a turkey?

MW: Oh no, no.

CS: Nothing? They didn’t do that back then, huh?

MW: Yeah, nothing like that.

CS:What would happen if you were sick and you couldn’t go to work one day?

MW: You would just go in the next day.

CS:Did they have a telephone? Did you call in sick, or did you just not go in?

MW: (Laughs). We just didn’t go in, we went in the next day.

CS:And you weren’t paid for that day?

MW: Oh no, oh no.

CS:What would happen if you were hurt on the job, something happened? Did the Dobsons take care of your medical bills?

MW: I don’t know about that. I was healthy. Laughs. Oh! I have a picture of Mrs. Altemus upstairs if you’d like to see it.

CS:We’d love to; we’d love to see it.

MW: She was a nice lady, very nice. Kind to you, speak to you. If she saw you, she’d pass you in the car she’d wave to you. That was nice; she didn’t have to do that.

CS:Can you describe how she looked?

MW: Oh she was tall, white hair when I remember her. And mostly wore black, I think.

CS:Why was that, did she just like it?

MW: I imagine she just liked it. In that time they thought she was really dressed up. And she wore that same hat for years and years and years, had it recovered. (Laughs). Poor Mrs. Altemus. But she liked the way that hat looked on her and felt, so she kept the frame and just had it covered over and over and over again. And her mother was the sweetest little soul; I don’t ever remember hearing her talk. But the family used to sit in the stairway, when we would go to sing. And Mrs. Altemus would be down with us. They gave us coffee.

CS:So you were actually invited in the house? Do you remember at all what it looked like? Or what your impressions of it were?

MW: This is what impressed me: the drape, one of the drapes, was over the radiator, and it must have been too hot, and it burnt. Well it wasn’t taken away and fixed, it was still there, and it was there the next time! (Laughs). So you see how we do things?

CS:So the rich maybe aren’t so different from us sometimes?

MW: (Laughs). That’s right! That’s funny.

CS:I’m also curious about the house, just because its not there and I think other people in this community had seen it and I never had. What was their house like on the outside?

MW: Well, when we were young, we kind of thought it was more like a castle, stones, you know. And they allowed us to go during the picnics on the grounds, and we had nice times. And the Mother’s Club used to go up there for picnics.

CS:And what was the Mother’s Club?

MW: That was a group of all kinds of women, housekeepers, and they had it for years, in the Falls. And Mrs. Altemus was interested, and she helped them out occasionally. I got in on the tail end. And they used to do nice things; they had a choir, they met at the library.

CS:At Old Academy or up at the Falls Library?

MW: Mmhmm, the Falls.

CS:Somebody in another interview told us that Mrs. Altemus, she thought Mrs. Altemus actually worked at the mill a little bit when she was younger; do you know if that’s true?

MW: Oh no, I don’t know, I didn’t know that.

CS:Maybe in the office or something?

MW: Yeah, maybe.

CS:What would you say might be your most vivid memory of working at Dobson Mills? What just stands out more than anything, or a feeling you had about Dobson that just stayed with you?

MW: Well there was many, it was fun. I had lots of fun. Lots of fun, and then later I worked at the Harry Clayton’s store, on Conrad Street. Between Sunnyside and Bowman.

CS:So you worked there?

MW: I worked there. I remember twin boys that worked for them, one worked at the grocery store, where I worked, and one worked at the meat store down at the next corner. And they were the skinniest kids I ever saw! (Laughs). And they were demons! This one, every time I went down to the cellar- of course Mr. Clayton didn’t care when I carried up from the cellar- I used to carry up cases of cans, up the cellar steps. And I met his son not too long ago, and he said, “Mary, how did you like, uh, remember what you got for salary?” I said, “Yeah I remember.” He said, “Eleven dollars.” I said, “Oh no, oh no, Harry, no! Seven dollars!” Laughs. Because I remember when he gave me that seven dollars one week, I went home and I said to mother, we are going to Rowl’s (?) in Germantown, and I’m going to buy you something. So, I bought her a seven dollar pocketbook.

CS:Oh I bet that was a big deal.

MW: Laughs. Oh boy was that something! And she said, “Oh child,” she always said oh child, “Child, oh that’s a shame you shouldn’t have done that.” So this boy that worked with me, he would hide down the cellar, and I didn’t know he was down there, and he would jump out at me, and I would get a hold of him, I could handle him, you know, he was skinny, and I would get him and I would thump the back of him. And he would laugh, you never knew that he felt it because he wouldn’t let you know. Laughs. But he would do it again the next time!

CS:And how old were you when you worked there?

MW: I must have been about fifteen, sixteen.

CS:David said something about pushing a truck?

MW: At the store? Oh I pushed everything! I cleaned the shelves, I cleaned the windows, I did everything!

CS:Well was the truck an automobile truck?

MW: Oh yeah, actually no it was a car, an old fashioned car. And you know there’s a street-Division Street- between Sunnyside and Bowman, and they treated me like I was a boy. ‘Mary come on you have to help push the car!’

CS:Were you as little as you are now?

MW: Oh I guess I was littler than I am now. There had to be about four of us pushing that car, through the little old street. And they didn’t think anything of that having a girl push the car. That was nothing! What are you talking about, you know! Laughs. Oh but through it all, I enjoyed my life. Really, I didn’t have anything, but I enjoyed life. So I can’t, he put, did you have the paper that he wrote on?

CS:Yeah let’s take a look, let me just ask a couple things, I usually like to start out asking, but it doesn’t matter when I ask them. And then we can go to some other question. When were you born?

MW: I was born in 1897.

CS:What day?

MW: The day? Oh, August 11. We have a cradle that all our children were in, it’s a wooden cradle that I put over

RE: I was going to bring that up. They had a family cradle.

It came from England.

RE: It came from England. The youngest girl said that was what was wrong with her – that when she was in it – that was Gladys – she said – she cried – anyone who was minding her at the time had to rock the cradle and they rocked her sideways –back and forth – and her head banged on one side – banged on the other side – back and forth – and she always said that that was what was wrong with her.

MW: Well there was a hole bored in the side of the cradle, and we put a string in there, and we used to pull the string up at the end, you know. Maybe that’s what wrong with me, I don’t know. Laughs.

CS:Were you born in East Falls?

MW: Yes. I was born on Sunnyside, lower Sunnyside.

CS:And your parents were born in England? Both of them were born in England?

MW: Mmhmm, the same town.

CS:What town?

MW: Osset.

CS:Do you know, I don’t know England, do you know what part of England that was? North, South, East, West?

MW: Yorkshire.

CS:And do you remember just approximately when they came? Were they a young couple?

MW: Yeah, he came first. See when there’s a family, the oldest one would come first. And after he got a job, the next one would come. And the father would stay over there until they were all over here.

CS:Was he married to your mother at that time?

MW: No, he was a young boy. And, let’s see, that’s how they came over.

CS:And she didn’t know him when she came over?

MW: Oh yes she was keeping company, that’s why they sent him back again. He went back over to bring my mother, and she lived with these people, until they could afford to get a place. But, the girls, there were two girls, they used to make fun of him, when she came over it was in February, and she had on a white hat. In those days you didn’t wear a white straw hat in February. And one of them said to her, “Is that the only hat you have?” She said, “No I have a black hat.” And they said, “Oh well wear that, don’t wear the white one, that’s for summer.” And they used to tease her a little bit, you know, she was green.

CS:They were married in England then?

MW: Yes, because her mother was furious at her for going, coming over here.

CS:Her parents were angry with her because she came to America?

MW: Mmhmm, so you know she must have been sad when she came.

CS:And you don’t have any year that they came over? How old would they be now? When was she born?

MW: Oh I don’t know, does it say on that paper?

CS:Was that Mary and Joseph (Smith)? They came over in the late 1880s just approximately, that’s what the note says here. And your grandmother returned to England in the early 1890s with your two older sisters, Amy and Eva.

CS:Did she stay long?

MW: I don’t imagine.

CS:And then came back and never went to England again. What kind of work did your father, do you know what kind of work your father did?

MW: He was a weaver. He worked at Dobson’s. But he then became a clothing salesmen, he knew the materials, you know. And that’s what he had as long as he lived, until he retired. He worked in Wanamaker and Brown’s first – that was down at 6th and Market. Then he went up to John Wanamaker’s, and then they had the, what should I say, the boss. They had the boss on his floor, um, died. And they put a younger man on, in his place. Now they should have put a man that was used to the job. And he stood at the upstairs and looked down and there was another man moving. And he said, “You see all those white haired men down there? Well they’re going to go.” This was when my father was still living, working. First thing you know, he was the one that went, and the others were put back again. You know, a smart alec. So, you never know, you never know!

CS:Did the, did it seem like a lot of people who came over from England would work in the Dobson Mill?

MW: Yes, an awful lot of them, because they knew the material, they had done the work, you know.

RE: But in England was it noted that if you get to America that you go live in East Falls and you’ll get a job in the Dobson Mill?

MW: Laughs. They used to go down to the water, and wait to see if there was anybody that got off that they knew. And they would direct them right up to East Falls.

CS:They meaning some of the workers or some of the people..?

MW: Some of the workers.

RE: I always wondered how they decided where in the United States they were going to go when they got here.

MW: Yeah, yeah. They used to go every time the boat came in they went down.

CS:The boat came in to Philadelphia?

MW: Uh-huh. Yeah.

CS:And you had, um let’s see, just two sisters? Amy and Eva?

MW: Amy, and Eva, and Gladys, and one boy. Oh yeah! Ida; Ida died when she was five.

CS:Older or younger than you?

MW: Younger, no, older!

CS:So you didn’t know her? Or you did?

MW: No, I don’t remember her.

CS: What did she die of?

MW: I think it was spinal meningitis.

CS: Did most women have their babies at home or did they go to the hospital?

MW: At home

RE: Edna Wooley mentioned Miss Dunns?

MW: Yeah, she was, I think she was Irish, but she was a very good nurse, and she never had any trouble getting work. And then she got to know these two women on New Queen Street- they owned some of the houses on New Queen. I can’t remember their name right now. But a lot of people had her, she brought a lot of children into the world.

CS: She had a sort of hospital on Henry Avenue, a three story house? And instead of going to the hospital when you had your baby…

MW: I had David up there.

CS: And did you walk up when you got kind of heavy, you walked up?

MW: Uh-huh. I walked up. On Henry Avenue near Ainslie, the end house in the row. It’s still there, I think.

CS: But it was a house? Like a small private little hospital. Was she a midwive or a nurse?

MW: A nurse. She was very pleasant.

RE: Did she have a doctor come in?

MW: Yes

RE: She didn’t deliver the babies…

MW: No, Dr. Entwisle.

CS:About what years did she have the house? Was it there for as long as you can remember?

MW: No, she hasn’t been there for quite a while. Well she was getting up in age, you know. She was a lovely person, she was comical. Her sister lived with her, and one day I said, “Miss Dunn, I hear a noise, like somebody tapping, where would that be?” And she laughed and she said, “That’s my sister, she’s doing a jig down there.” Laughs. And she was such a sober looking person you’d never think of such a thing, you know?

CS:Why did you choose Miss Dunn’s to go to have a baby?

MW: Because I didn’t want to go to the hospital.

CS:You were scared of the hospital?

MW: Yes

CS:Did everyone have the same feeling?

MW: I don’t think so. I think in years past, you know, they were more in the home.

CS: Was she less expensive?

(tape is blanked out for a minute or two)

Resumes:

MW: …I could kill that man so easy. I don’t know who ever gave him the outfit.

CS: What was his name?

MW: Dr. Roe. And when my sister had Dorothy, the oldest girl, she had her home, and he came one day and I was in the room and I didn’t know how to get out, I hated him so. He was annoying, you know. He would put his hands on you. So, um, I crawled under the bed. And my mom was in the room too, and I think she must have given him the goat eye and told him where I was, so he leaned down and got a hold of my leg and pulled me out. Well then I just hated him a little more. And then my mother would say sometimes when somebody was sick, “You’ll have to go down to the doctors and get some pills, he’ll give them to you.”

And I would say, “Yeah, well mother, I don’t want to go.” “Well you have to go because there’s nobody else to go.” So, my girlfriend went with me, Esther, remember her? She went with me. And I said uh, “I came for pills,” oh I hated that man! And he said, “Well you can’t have them until you sit on my lap.” And I said, “Well I won’t sit on your lap!” He said, “Well, all right,” so here he slipped them to Esther, and he sent me a note saying that he…

CS: So in those days he was a very old man?

MW: Oh he was, he was. You could tell to look at him. So, um, when we got a little closer to home, she said, “Listen Mary, here’s your pills, he told me not to give them to you.” Then I hated him more, how much hate can you hold. Oh dear it was awful, it was awful. Anytime my mother would say, “Go down to the doctor…”

RE: Dr. Zinn(?) was like that too.

MW Was he? I kinda thought he was!

RE: You had to stand flat against him and he had you put your arms around his waist and hold him tight and he held you while he looked in your eyes to examine your eyes because he said it was steadier that way, but he never made the old ladies stand that way.

MW: They were a thing of the past. Oh dear, it was awful. It was awful. Anytime my mother would say go down to the doctor …

CS:I bet you didn’t get sick much.

MW: No, I wouldn’t say I was sick. Laughs.

CS:Where did you go to school?

MW: Forest School, right down off Krail Street, it’s gone away by now.

CS:What are your memories of the Forest School?

MW: Um, bad boys. This Mr. Gotwols, who just died, he was in an automobile…. See, I’m getting stupid now. Laughs. He and his wife were in the car, and the dog, he never went anywhere without his dog. He came to our church, they lived all the way out in Jersey and they came to our church, the Methodist church. And he let it stay in the car while they were in church. Ain’t that funny? Well he died a couple of months ago, is it two months ago?

RE: This was George Gotwols?

MW: No, George died before this, that was my sister-in-law’s husband, and nobody liked him either. And this Alfred was in school with me, and he would think nothing about grabbing the hat off your head, hair along, and throw it up in the tree! And you wouldn’t even have a hat to wear, you couldn’t reach it! You couldn’t climb the tree, you were out of luck. Oh he was bad! Did awful things. So now he’s dead and buried, and she’s in the hospital with all kinds of complaints. I don’t know where she’s going to go. I really don’t.

RE: Who were the teachers at Forest School?

MW: Well, in first grade, I always heard this name now, I don’t know whether it was right or now, Miss Clara Cap(?) And she used to wear a little shawl around her, oh she was an old maid. Typical old maid. And she had first grade, Miss Walker – I don’t know her first name – , she had one first grade, and she had the other. And then there was Carrie Dyson- D-Y-, and her father had a junk store down on the Ridge, and you could get nice things down there, you know, cheap. Yeah, that was Miss Carrie Dyson. They were in the lower grades; then did I say Miss Walker?

CS:You just mentioned Miss Walker, now what grade was she?

MW: oh, I just mentioned Miss Walker… she must have been the third or fourth. And then I can’t remember the others.

CS:Was there a principal of the school, Mary?

MW: Yes. Um, Reese, Dr. Reese was one. Then there was an old, old man with a beard, and his, I think his name was Dr. Samuels, and he was kind of cute. Laughs. He used to kid around with the kids a little bit, nice, you know, real nice.

CS:Wasn’t it accustomed to call school teachers by their first names? You would call them Miss…

MW: Miss Clara, yes.

CS:Did the teachers tend to be older people or young people right out of grammar school?

MW: They weren’t real young, course you couldn’t gauge in those days, they were almost old – you know what I mean?

CS:What age did you become an old maid?

MW: Oh, Amy was an old maid. Oh, about in your twenties.

CS:In your twenties you were an old maid. So if you weren’t married by then, you were an old maid?

MW: Yeah, yeah. She was never married. But she enjoyed life, so she was great for music, she played the piano very well, she used to go to all of the good shows in town. She took a few trips, and she took a trip to Bermuda, I think it was Bermuda. Is that the one that the water is so rough? Bermuda?

CS:That’s probably right, I get the Bahamas and Bermuda all mixed up!

MW: Well anyway, she went on this boat trip, and she had everything new to go in. A suit, a pretty little suit, and a pretty hat, and I thought, “I’ll borrow that hat when she comes back.” Laughs. And she got sick, seasick. She went to bed in the suit and the hat and the shoes and everything, She was so sick. And the hat, the nice hat, was turned up at the back ‘cause she wore that to bed, and I said, “What happened to this hat? Cause I was going to borrow it.” She said, “I didn’t know whether I had a hat on or off.”

RE: They always wore hats and gloves to church. Not so informal as it is today. David said something about the flags out…

MW: Well I used to go out from the store and get orders. And I knew the people on my street, you know.. So, I don’t know what day it was they put out the flags and here I was on New Queen St. putting flags out on the road and Harry Clayton, my boss, was boiling in the store saying “Where can she be?”

CS: You were helping the people put the flags out?

MW: Yes, when I got back to the store I could look at his face and knew he was mad and he said “Where in tarnation have you been? I said I’ve been out getting orders.” He said “Well, it took you a long time.” Harry was a grump. He was grumpy.”

CS: There’s something here about the building of the Manor. What was the Manor?

MW: The Manor was from Vaux Street on…

RE: – Queen Lane Manor. It was when the new houses were built.

MW: Now that house that Ruth lives in, that was one of them in it.

RE: Queen Lane Manor, from Vaux Street to Henry.

MW: Onto Germantown Avenue

RE: Queen Lane Manor? Wissahickon, I think.

MW: Wissahickon; maybe.

CS: Why was it called Manor?

RE: The builder, McCrudden, McCrudden was the builder.

CS:It was a development?

RE: Yes, it was a development and he named the section Queen Lane Manor.

CS:And that was in the ‘20’s?

RE: Yes.

MW: And, you know, when they built the Lutheran Church, there was a man who would take care of things while the workers were away – see that nothing was stolen or anything like that. And we – they allowed the kids to gather up pieces of wood to take home for firewood – we didn’t need it but I used to go up and get it for my girlfriend. Oh I loved it – I loved picking up that wood.

CS:It sounds like you were a hard worker.

MW: Well we had jobs to do. They don’t have them now. These girls don’t have jobs to do; do they?

CS:What kind of jobs did you have to do?

MW: Well, we had to dry the dishes, we had to sweep the sunporch and the pavement, you know – things like that.

CS:What did the boys do?

MW: Well, we only had the one boy – he did nothing!!!

RE: David mentioned the 2-4-6-8-10 Club…

MW: Yes, that was a Sunday School class.

RE: Was your whole social life then, when you were young, was the church, wasn’t it?

MW: Yeah. We had the junior league on Friday night – we’d all come together and we enjoyed it.

CS:What’s the 2-4-6-8-10 Club?

MW: Because there were 10 girls in the club – we named it 2-4-6-8-10.

CS:But it was actually a Sunday School class?

MW: Yes.

RE: Something about counting it out by twos?

MW: Yeah. And the first teacher that we had was Mrs. Stupplebine and he was the – do you remember him? Store on Midvale? Well she had us in her house. Come to my house. So then it grew – we took a few others in – and it just recently stopped.

CS: It was in existence all this time? It was the same people?

MW: Yes. Alice Hess is in the Methodist Home. Myrtle Wilcox that lived down Queen Lane – she’s in a home in a home.

CS: In Maryland?

MW: Where? I think it’s Maryland; I don’t know. Anyhow, we used to meet in one another’s houses once a month and we’d have a spread, you know. And she took us down to Strawberry Mansion and then she’s take us over across the Ridge to an ice cream store. Oh was that ever something. We loved a plate of ice cream.

RE: What other clubs were in the church? There was the Queen Esther Circle, wasn’t there? How did it that get its name?

MW: Yeah. That was from the children’s home down in the depths of the city. We had a home down there for poor children and that was where that money went to.

RE: But why did they call it the Queen Esther Circle?

MW: I never knew.

CS: Queen Esther from the Old Testament, right?

MW: Yeah, I guess …to help people.

RE: We had varied stories on how the Moment Musical started, and some people said the Queen Esther Circle put on this musical play – minister’s wife to earn money for whatever – and others say, no, it was not the Queen Esther Circle it was something else, but they don’t know what. What do you remember?

MW: I think it was the Queen Esther Circle.

RE: It was the Queen Esther Circle. And the people of the church picked this musical play and put it on, and then later the minister thought it wasn’t suitable for a church to have plays and that’s when they formed the Moment Musical Club – in 1923.

MW: Yes that’s about right.

RE: But it was the It was the Queen Esther Circle that did it first

MW: Yes, hmhm.

CS:Were you involved in the Moment Musical Club?

MW: I wasn’t, but my sister played the piano, and my brother was in it, and my younger sister – my younger sister was a comic. Do you remember Gladys, don’t you?

RE: Oh, how would I ever forget her?

MW: I have a little picture upstairs – I’ll bring it down. And Mrs. Altemus.

RE: Never forget Gladys – the greatest actress, comedian – a natural, self-taught and she used to do monologues Yeah – and she could do them at the drop of a hat and go on and have an audience in the palm of her hands – they would be in the aisles laughing at her. Nobody does those anymore but Gladys could do them anytime and she was a marvelous actress.

MW: She worked at Wanamaker’s in the audit department and those girls loved her.

RE: Everybody loved Gladys.

MW: She would carry on for them, you know.

RE: Mary’s brother was Stanley Smith who was a charter member of the Moment Musical which later became the Old Academy Players when they moved into the Old Academy.

CS:Where did the Moment Musical Club meet at first?

MW: Well, they met at church.

CS:And then when the church felt that it wasn’t suitable, then where did they go?

RE: They went in each other’s homes, they tell me.

MW: Yes, they did.

CS:And where did they put on their performances until they got to Old Academy?

MW: Did they ever do them in America Hall?

RE: They did them in – you mean Palestine Hall on Ridge and Midvale?

MW: Yeah, it might have been down there, but there was a hall on 35th.

RE: Oh, America Hall, yes I know – the hospital has that now. They also rented the Germantown Women’s Club on Washington Lane. They rented various places and did them. Where they rehearsed I don’t know. In each other’s homes, I guess.

MW: Yeah, I don’t know.

RE: Until near 1932 when Jim Lawson suggested the Old Academy might be available for them. And they agreed and they moved in and renovated it and have kept it in good condition ever since.

MW: I guess the English Lodge – they used to meet in there.

RE: The English Lodge, yes, but they couldn’t do anything to keep the building in repair. I understand it was to be condemned and torn down when Jim Lawson brought it up about the Old Academy – the Moment Musical moving in. And that’s when they changed their name when they moved in there.

MW: How about that; I didn’t know that.

RE: And there was Selwyn Briggs – we must interview him – he still lives on Ainslie Street does he?

MW: Yes, upper Ainslie on the opposite side from (?)

RE: She’ll know which house, though. He was one of the charter members and he remembers everything. Did you go to Breck School?

MW: Yes, It was Forest – then it was changed.

CS:Changed the name?

MW: Yes.

CS:The building was the same? Did they add on to it at all?

MW: There were two buildings one for the younger classes and the other for the older. One was brick, one was stone.

CS:Yes, we’ve heard that. Now there’s something here about “Ducky”?

MW: The Ducky? Yeah, it was just a little pond at the top of Sunnyside and there were more accidents in that darn thing – the boys used to swing out on the limb of a tree and down they’d go! And how many broken arms, I don’t know…an awful lot…

RE: That’s when it was all woods above Vaux.

MW: Right where you were living was a big field where there were horses.

CS:Who had the horses?

RE: The 3300 block of Ainslie St., she’s talking about.

MW: There was a pool.

CS:But who owned the property?

MW: There was a Mr. Fanning. I think he was a milkman and he had a few cows and a couple of horses. Now my cousin – there was a crowd of us walking through that field one day – and one of the horses was there and one of the boys got smart and said to Myrtle “Would you like a ride on the horse?” And she said yes, so he pushed her up on the horse and then he gave it a crack and it flew up that field. I said “Oh! That was a dirty trick.” She was scared green.

RE: Bad boys, again.

MW: Yes, bad boys; they were rough. Very rough.

RE: But this pond, or whatever it was – at the top of Sunnyside and Vaux, they called it the Duckie? Did it have a lot of ducks?

MW: No ducks!

RE: You “ducked” into it…

MW: I guess they were ducking themselves in; I don’t think you were supposed to swim in it, but there was water in there. Now it might have just been water that laid in there but they used to swing out on the branch and drop down. Sometimes they dropped too far.

CS:Where the school is now, the Mifflin School, what was there before the Mifflin “School was built?

MW: Nothing. Midvale Avenue? None of those houses were there, not many of them. Down lower, near the Ridge, there were houses, and where the Catholic Church, St. Bridget’, there were houses on the other side of the street. But it was all woods there when we were kids. There would be a little stream on Midvale and we’d go over and move the stones and maybe find little animals…

CS: Crayfish….

MW: Yeah, We would be out all day – all day! Sometimes we’d forget to go home for lunch. Do you want me to get that picture? And the little one in the frame right there?

RE: I remember from my early days on Ainslie Street the Foggy Dews on Christmas Eve going around caroling and nobody seems to remember – some people remember the name – but who they were and what kind of music they played – what instruments or what is was all about. Do you remember?

MW: Well he was Bill Thorpe’s – his father – you know Bill Thorpe – he married Grace Tregae and Otto (?)

RE: And he had the Foggy Dews?

MW: Yeah and they used to go out Christmas caroling.

RE: And who else was in the Foggy Dews?

MW: I don’t know.

RE: Were there three or two?

MW: Four, I think

RE: And what were the instruments?

MW: I think he had a horn, Mr. Thorpe.

CS:Did someone say a fife and drum, in another interview?

MW: They might have. I guess in such times as we’re having now, people don’t want to do things.

RE: No. Where did they get the name Foggy Dews?

MW: It was before my time, I think.

RE: Grace Tregae’s husband, Bill Thorpe?

MW: Hm, hm

RE: Well that wouldn’t have been before your time…

MW: No, but this is his father…

CS:The other thing there was a note about was all the stores on 35th Street, so I just thought we might talk about that. Conrad Street, right?

MW: Yeah. Why, Mrs. Horsefield and her husband, Mr. Horsefield – he rode a motorcycle and he would take his sister-in–law to the store on the back of that motorcycle. She’d go anywhere – she’d go upstate – the wife wouldn’t go with him. And he wasn’t so good with the eyes – the eyes weren’t so good.

CS:He was an older man?

MW: Yeah, He was no kid. They had a little – why can’t I think of that…she sold girdles and stuff.

CS:Dry goods?

MW: Dry goods. Things like that. We had a name for him – everyone laughed about him – I never knew what he worked at, or if he did work, but she ran the store. We’d say “Look out, here comes Mr. Horsefield!”

RE: We didn’t touch the library.

CS:Oh, let’s do that.

RE: Do you have any idea how long the library was there in the Old Academy?

MW: As long as I could remember.

RE: And how long ago would that be? Would it have been before 1901?

MW: I imagine so.

CS:You were born in 1897.Do you have your first memory of going to the library, there?

MW: When we were at school – when I was in the early grades at school. We used to stop in on the way home and get a book or take a book back.

RE: Do you remember the librarian?

MW: Yeah.

CS:Who was she?

MW: I can see her in my mind.

CS:What did she look like?

MW: She was dark complected and she sometimes was very grumpy – because we were noisy I guess.

Dr. Snyder, first Chairman of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at (what was then) Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science, talks about his experiences at the College and life in East Falls.

KH: When and where were you born?

LS: I was born in a little town in northeast PA called Drums, named after a family named Drum that lived in that area and I was born in 1921.

KH: What about your parents, what were their backgrounds, as far as nationality?

LS: Well, they were both natural born citizens. My father came from a family of Welsh miners. His father was named John Owens which is kind of curious since my name is not Owens but that’s a long other story and he was married to a Jenny Singleton which is probably English but my grandfather Owens was a miner and all of his sons except one who had a crippled foot were miners at one time or the other. It was a very large family of ultimately I guess 10 – 8 boys and 2 girls – curiously the second girl, my Aunt Ethel, is a year younger than I am!

KH: So you still have your Aunt Ethel?

LS: Yes and my mother’s family, I wish I knew more about. Her father’s name was John Wilson Mace which I think is probably an English name and her mother, on the other hand, was of German origin. She herself was born here but her parents I think came from Germany. Their name was Wirsing which appears to have been shortened from Wirsinger. And my parents probably met in the equivalent of junior high school. I never inquired about this but I think that was the case. They both had what was then sort of the common public education in that area. They went through 8th grade. My father subsequently had some training – I guess 2 years – in a business school and was proficient as a bookkeeper and so on and later used those skills in various ways, preparing taxes for people and that sort of thing. My mother would have liked to have gone to college but her family simply couldn’t afford it. If she had, she probably would have been a teacher and those skills, sort of leading and directing groups, came up in volunteer activities later on.

KH: Do you have any siblings?

LS: I have a sister who survives. She’s 2 years younger than I, almost exactly 2 years. I had two other sisters who died in infancy though younger than my sister Betty. Apparently, they died because of the incompatibility of blood factors. At the time they didn’t know how to deal with it but apparently, that’s now dealt with transfusions or injections or something. Apparently, it’s a fairly common thing and after the first but more commonly after the second pregnancy, women with this factor have to have that dealt with or their children won’t survive. They are what I think they call ‘blue babies.’ And both of these girls, I think, died within a matter of days after birth.

KH: Does your sister, Betty, still live up in northeastern PA?

LS: Yes, she lives in a little town outside of Hazelton. She was a registered nurse. She trained here in Philadelphia at the nursing school at the Women’s Medical College when that still existed here in East Falls. And for a time she and her husband who she knew in junior high school, after they married they lived for a time in Germantown for I guess about 2 or 3 years while she worked as a nurse and he was working for the Western Electric Company, generally installing central office telephone equipment, the type of things that have now been replaced by electronic circuits and so on.

KH: I’m also interested in knowing, when you were a youngster in school – elementary, secondary school – what were your academic strengths and what were your academic weaknesses?

LS: It’s interesting, I generally did pretty well in most subjects. I especially liked in the early grades things like geography. I was pretty good at math right from the beginning and all through high school I was pretty good in math. It’s always been a little disappointing to me that I didn’t have any math in college. I often wish I had taken calculus because I think it would have been useful because it’s related to statistics and so on which I never really learned.

KH: Well, along those lines, when you were growing up did you think like most kids do: I want to be such and such when I grow up?

LS: Well, things that interested me were, I can remember particularly when I was about in 7th or 8th grade, I got interested in bridges. I remember in my 7th grade classroom they had a set of ‘The Book of Knowledge’ which is kind of an old set of encyclopedic reference work. I got to reading that once during a recess or something and I was reading about the building of the first cantilevered bridges in Scotland.

KH: One of those iron bridges?

LS: Yes, the ones they built out from both sides. And that fascinated me and so I thought, well, I would like to build bridges. And if had got a scholarship to an engineering school instead of to a liberal arts college, I might have very well been an engineer because I was interested in that sort of thing and I was to that point pretty good at math and physics and that sort of thing. I was also interested in architecture which is not unrelated to engineering. I used to make model houses and so on, a sort of a modern kind of house. Instead of stairs, my house had a ramp from the first to the second floor and one of the things I also got interested in during that same time was I read at that time about the raising of the ‘USS something or other’ which was a submarine which had sunk but was eventually raised and brought up to the surface and the whole thing was very interesting because it meant getting under the submarine on the sea bed with putting cables underneath it and then attaching those cables to tanks which they filled with air and eventually the whole thing was raised up and I was fascinated by that. That sort of technical thing kind of interested me.

KH: That’s interesting to me because I know about your career in English, English literature. When you went to college – well, first of all – where did you go to college and did you major in English?

LS: Well no, I went to Muhlenberg College in Allentown which was a different college then than it is now.

KH: So, you ‘came south’ at that point (from northeastern PA)?

LS: Yes, as a matter of fact I had scholarships to two liberal arts colleges- Muhlenberg was one, Franklin & Marshall was the other. And I’ve often speculated, well, suppose I’d gone to Franklin & Marshall instead of Muhlenberg? I would have known a whole different set of people in a different place. At that time, F & M was probably the more prestigious college and probably maybe a little better even in terms of its faculty. But Muhlenberg has come to be a much stronger college now than it was then. Until sometime about in the late 50s, I think it became co-ed. Until then it was a men’s college which it was when I was there and the total enrollment was about 500. Now it’s co-ed, has been for 60 years and is at least three times as big as it was then.

KH: That’s where you did your undergraduate work?

LS: Yes, and I was not majoring in English, I was majoring in Classics – Greek and Latin –and I was planning to go on to graduate work in Classics. As a matter of fact, I had received a fellowship to study Classics at the University of Chicago but then World War II came and I was drafted. And after the War, by then I had changed my goal but since I had already once been admitted to the University of Chicago, they said well, we have already admitted you once and your admission is still good. And that was fortunate for me because at the time there were so many veterans trying to get back into colleges and universities. But since they’d taken me once, they took me back.

KH: So, that’s where you got your graduate degree after the War?

LS: Yes.

KH: A Master’s Degree in English?

LS: Yes, a Master’s Degree in English. By that time I had switched my interest. When I was in college, I was studying Greek and Latin. I had also had by then five years of German. I had had two years of German in high school, three years of German in college. I had had two years of French and two years of Italian and by then I guess I had probably eight years of Latin and four years of Greek. Well, in my senior year I took an elective course in the English department called ‘A History of the English Language.’ Well, I was fascinated there because as I got to studying the English vocabulary, I realized that so much of it comes from so many different languages and I thought, boy, this is what really turns me on.

So, I really got interested in that and at the University of Chicago they didn’t really have many people who were who in English philology. Philology is sort of a name for the study of language. It’s not equivalent to linguistics and it’s an older term. It’s really a 19th century/early 20th century term focusing on the study of language for the sake of interpreting and understanding the literature in a language. So, they really didn’t have many people at Chicago in that area. They did have one man who was an expert in Middle English but he was retiring. I essentially filled in some of the many gaps in my English literature background and then I came back east. I first applied to Johns Hopkins because they had a strong language department and they would have accepted me but not that year. I would have had to wait a year and I didn’t want to do that. I applied to Yale also and they had already filled their class for the coming year. And I was somewhat at loose ends until I was talking to a former professor at Muhlenberg whom I had known as an undergraduate and he said, well, I know some people at Penn. I’ll talk to them and see if they have any openings and, as a matter of fact, I was accepted eventually at Penn.

KH: So, that’s what brought you to Philadelphia?

LS: That’s what brought me to Philadelphia.

KH: Actually, every question I had you have answered already!

LS: Yes, I came here in the fall of 1947.

KH: So, you’ve been in Philadelphia since 1947?

LS: Yes, 1947.

KH: And you and Helen were married in 1956?

LS: Yes, 1956. Helen came here in 1950. Her move was job-related. She had been working in a family counseling agency in Cleveland and she came to Philadelphia to Family Services of Philadelphia which was then a major agency in the field, a pioneer in many respects.

KH: And I know that when you came to Philadelphia, you had lived in Center City.

LS:Well, my first year in Philadelphia I lived in a rented room at 47th & Spruce. And then, one of my graduate school classmates had got a job at Bucknell and was leaving Philadelphia so I took over his apartment which was at 42nd between Locust and Walnut near what was then the Episcopal Seminary. What is that nowadays?

KH: You know, I’m not sure. Is that the…, you said 46th?

LS: 42nd.

KH: Would it be around 42nd between Walnut or Spruce area?

LS: Yes. Walnut and Locust.

KH: OK – that I’m not sure of. But then when you and Helen married, I know you lived in Mt. Airy?

LS: Well, yes.

KH: Or was it Germantown?

LS: After a couple of years in West Philadelphia, I moved downtown. I first had an apartment at 22nd & Walnut and then I had an apartment on 21st Street.

KH: Above the Friday Saturday Sunday restaurant?

LS: Yes, that was a lovely apartment. And while I was living there I met Helen and after we married, we lived for two years in an apartment across the street, 267 South 21st. Then we moved to Mt. Airy.

KH: Right. Obviously, and my next question is, what year did you begin working at the Philadelphia Textile Institute which eventually brought you to East Falls?

LS: 1957. And as a matter of fact, we were still living downtown at that time and I used to drive out to what was then the Philadelphia Textile Institute.

KH: Right. So, as you said, you moved here in 1965.

LS: Yes, but we had lived, I think, for seven years, in Mt. Airy. I think we lived downtown two years. We looked all over the place, including some of the suburbs for a place to rent essentially but eventually because of someone that Helen worked with in the same agency, had a neighbor who was vacating a house in Mt. Airy, we learned of this house in Mt. Airy, just off of Lincoln Drive on West Durham and we lived there for seven years.

KH: Before moving here?

LS: Before moving here, yes.

KH: Now I was also interested to know when you were hired by what was then the Philadelphia Textile Institute, what was your first position – were you an instructor or professor?

LS: I was an instructor in English.

KH: So you started in the English department.

LS: Yes. Well, there wasn’t really an English department. That’s one of the curious things. It was kind of a mish-mash. Of course, then the emphasis was still very much on textiles instruction and mostly on textile production. Design had not yet come to be as strong as it would later was. And there was nothing except textiles or chemistry as related to textiles. It was not until about 1959 or 1960 that they first introduced a textile-related business curriculum called ‘textile management and marketing.’ And then a few years after that came straight business administration and then later on everything else and textiles is much less prominent than the overall curriculum as it was then.

KH: So you were there for about what, 30 years?

LS:Yes, about 34 years – 1957 to 1991

KH: So, obviously, you kind of advanced through the ranks?

LS: Well, yes, after a few years I recognized that in some ways I was acting as though I were head of a department but there wasn’t any English department. I was hiring people and recommending people for hiring and so on. So I talked to the president and said well maybe it would be a good idea if I had the title as chairman of the department and so I was sort of chairman of the English department. And then, about that same time the Institute had hired a professor from the University of Pennsylvania to sort of do an overall evaluation of the College’s situation and among the things that he recommended was that the faculty be organized into five departments: department of textiles, department of business, department of mathematics and science, department of humanities, and department of social sciences. One of the problems with that was that all of the people teaching in the social sciences were part-timers, so it didn’t seem very logical to have a department with only part-timers. So, the recommendation was to attach it to one of the other departments, either humanities or business. And then they first said, well, let’s attach it to humanities where I was suggested as the appropriate chairman because I had already been acting as chairman with English and history, hiring people and so on. I said, “Oh, my God, I don’t know anything about psychology or sociology.” Well, they said then we’ll attach it to the school of business and I knew the chairman of the school of business and thought well, I think I know at least as much about those things as he does. So, I said OK, we’ll take it and I think it was an appropriate move because it makes more sense to join all of those with, what shall we say, general education courses into a single department.

KH: So, at that point you were chairman of…?

LS: I was chairman of the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences. In those days, chairmanship was essentially a matter of presidential appointment. I was chairman and had been for I guess almost 15 years when the people in my department began to say, well, we faculty ought to have some say into who is the chairman and we ought to have an elected chairmanship. Well, since that was a pretty strong impulse on their part, I sort of went along with that and so I ran as a candidate for chairman and was elected and served for one year. Subsequently, other people were elected chair. Nowadays, that department is the School of Liberal Arts. That’s gone through several name changes. The first was called the School of General Studies. That name was rejected because like the School of Liberal Arts at Penn, it deals with non-credit courses. Then they had still another name – I’ve forgotten it – but know it’s the School of Liberal Arts. Now, the deanship of that school is a matter of presidential appointment and is not subject to election of specific term.

KH: So, the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences became the School of Liberal Arts.

LS: Right.

KH: So, there never really was a title of ‘Department of English?’

LS: No, it was always the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences.

KH: What you taught, you taught English literature?

LS: Well, I taught freshman composition, introductory literature and occasional elective courses, some of them might be literary related. For example, twice I had a course in American Autobiography and that was something I enjoyed. And we dealt with writers such as Benjamin Franklin, Frederic Douglass, Mary McCarthy. Who is the man who wrote ‘Soul on Ice?’

KH: Oh, Eldridge Cleaver.

LS:And occasionally I had others, I taught speech occasionally and some other elective courses but mainly composition and the required literature course.

KH: I would imagine as is the case with most in jobs such as yours, that you probably got more enjoyment teaching than you did the administrative part?

LS: Well, I tell you, when I was chairman, I got a good deal of satisfaction out of working with other chairs, deans and so on in curriculum development and I was also interested all along in faculty governance. I helped organize the first chapter of the American Association of University Professors on campus. I had a role that turned out to be reasonably significant in moving the College in the direction of using TIAA-CREF as the pension fund. Before that, the College was self-insured and had its own pension plan. And, of course, if you lived long enough and worked there all your life, the benefits were pretty good but there was no vesting in it. If you went somewhere else, you had no pension from the College. If you died before you retired, your survivors had nothing. So, it was a real mess and the main problem was that it was underfunded. And I was asked to serve on a committee on the whole pension matter and I raised the question have you ever considered TIAA-CREF? Well, many people had never even heard of it, so I wrote to the TIAA-CREF office in New York and I called and I had people come down to talk to our committee and so on, and eventually we moved in that direction.

KH: Now, do you today, you’ve been retired since 1991, are you still involved in some way?

LS: Well, I try to check the University e-mail periodically. Currently, I’m having trouble with that and I keep calling the help desk and pointing out the problem. I get to the appropriate website and click on what I should click on and nothing happens. I’m going to have to call them again. They initially told me well, you didn’t update your password. I don’t know what the problem is. I used to go more often to visit colleagues on campus but now my visiting is pretty much limited to going to the first meeting of the faculty of the School of Liberal Arts every year.

KH: Where was your office on the campus?

LS: Well, the whole matter of my office was a long-standing problem. When I first went there, I shared an office with a man who taught jacquard weaving and it was a little office about a quarter of the size of this room. There was room for two desks in there and some bookcases and he was an interesting guy. He was very expert in his field but he had sort of a basic personality problem. He was very suspicious apparently of many people and apparently it was because he frequently thought people were trying to get the better of him. And this was not only with colleagues but students and on occasion, he would with students, particularly, lose his temper and would rant and carry on. I remember this happened once when I was in the office and he was in the classroom which was just beyond the wall. I could hear what was going on. There was this furor over there and he was carrying on. He left the classroom and came back and sat down at his desk and the man was pale and trembling. I think he scared himself with his temper.

KH: How long did you have to share this office with him?

LS: I shared for several years then after the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences was organized, they put all 14 of us faculty members in that department in a room which was about twice the size of this room. We just had desks in there. Not separate rooms, not even cubicles. After a couple of years, they gave us these 60 inch high partitions to give us a little separation but, of course, it was not very good – you couldn’t have a conference really, so we kept agitating for decent offices. And the administration said, well there’s just no room, we don’t have any room for offices for you. I even explored whether it would have been technically possible to build some offices on the top of Hayward Hall. Just a light structure on top of that very heavy structure. Well, of course, that never came to be. Eventually, we got word that since the director of buildings and grounds who was then living on the second floor of the White House which was then the administration building was moving out and that there would be some rooms available on the second floor of the administration building. We could have them if we all agreed not to come in through the main lobby but to enter by way of the fire escape!

KH: A sort of ‘tradesmen’s’ entrance?

LS: Yes! Of course, everybody objected to that and eventually they relented. For several years we had offices on the second floor of the administration building. They were mostly shared offices. I, as chairman, had my own office. It was a fairly nice, generous space in what had been part of the living room of the president when he lived on the second floor of the administration building. And while I was in that office, you see, when we had all been in this big room we had lots of togetherness. But when we moved to these rooms on the second floor of the administration building, we began to lose touch with one another. So, I started the practice of every Friday afternoon of having wine and cheese hour in my office. And that continued for many years. It was a voluntary thing and gradually involved faculty members from other departments and also, the dean and the president would sometimes come and join in. It’s something that kind of became a social function. That partially solved the problem of offices. After the College bought the Raven Hill Academy, our department moved to the Raven Hill Mansion and had offices there.

KH: So, I imagine that you walked to the office?

LS: Well, more often I drove because I had books and things to carry.

KH: Well, I guess the last part of the questions – I wanted to focus a little bit on East Falls – and I know you’re not born and raised in East Falls but you’ve lived here close to 50 years now. So, I thought I’d ask you about your thoughts on East Falls. What changes have you seen during the 45 years you lived here and any special people, colorful characters that you’ve come to know in East Falls?

LS: You see, I knew East Falls since 1957 since I came here then and actually before we moved here, we had looked at houses in East Falls and in Germantown. There were a couple of interesting houses on Vaux Street that we liked. We actually looked at a house on Warden Drive that we did not buy. That was an interesting one. It was, I think 3425 Warden but actually it’s the house next to Rendell’s. And at the time it belonged to Henri Marceau who was director of the Museum of Art and he was still living in the house. All his furniture and possessions were there and the walls contained pictures and autographed paintings done by artist friends of his. So, that was kind of an interesting experience to visit that house. Mr. Marceau was not there at the time but the realtor showed us around. And the realtor at that time was a resident of Warden Drive, a man named Harry Robinhold. There was a firm called Pritchard & Robinhold who had much of the real estate in East Falls and Germantown for years and years. And Robinhold showed us a whole bunch of houses, including one interesting one on a little street in Germantown. I always remember it because it was a big house which had two living rooms on the first floor. Off the center hall, there were two enormous living rooms. And he eventually sold us this house. There was a problem in the sale in that the house was a part of an estate and somehow the lawyer working for the estate had to go to Orphan’s Court to get something changed so that they could lower the price to what we were able to offer. But anyhow, it had been vacant for at least a couple of years, I think, before we bought it.

KH: Now, have you seen any major changes in East Falls in the past 45 years?

LS: Well…

KH: Was the movie theater still there?

LS: Yes, the movie theater, I think it was called the Alden, was on Midvale Avenue and there were a couple more gasoline/service stations on Midvale than there are now. Well, Gulf is not a gas station but that was a service station and down from it was an ARCO station and down, just before you get to the railroad bridge, where there’s a repair shop there was another gasoline station. The one at Midvale and Warden Drive was a Texaco, I don’t remember now, Texaco, ARCO, I think Esso. The Alden, I think, was the theater and what else was on there I don’t know.

There must have stores, I think. I’m reminded that – what was the East Falls post office – was in a building now belonging to St. Bridget Church. That little house just below the parking lot. It was a dinky little place – you had to sort of squeeze your way in almost. I can’t remember much more about Midvale Avenue. Oh, this was not after I moved here but this goes back to when I first came to Philadelphia years earlier, probably in my teens I had occasion to come to Philadelphia for some reason and I remember that near the intersection of Ridge and Midvale was one of these inns going back to the 19th century, you know where the people came out from town to have their catfish and waffles. It was one of these inns that reminded me of the houses in New Orleans, you know, with the kind of balcony with a lot of iron fret work and all of that sort of thing. Wendy Moody had an article in ‘The Fallser’ some issues back about those. The thing that I notice in recent years is that I have more of a sense of this block feeling more like a special community.

KH: Warden Drive, you mean?

LS: Yes, Warden Drive. You know, there’s a block party almost every year. And, in the last, I would say, two years or so, many more young families have moved in, so there’s lots more children here than there were for many years.

KH: So, it’s still a unique neighborhood as far as…?

LS: Yes, I think so. Of course, there have always been certain groups which have thought of themselves as East Falls groups. Even from the time when we first moved here, they called it the Warden Drive Book Club, sort of a woman’s book club that met monthly at members’ houses to discuss books they had read. They shared books. Books would be passed from one member to another. I remember Helen would take the books she got – I don’t know who brought her the books – but Helen’s job was to deliver the book to Joan Specter who was still living on Warden Drive.

KH: It wasn’t real long ago that they moved from there, maybe just in the last 10 years or so?

LS: Yes.

KH: Well, that was the last question I had. Do you have anything else you want to add? You’ve actually led me through the questions!

LS: There are certain other groups, now, for over a year I was asked to join a group that I think calls themselves ‘The Shakespeareans’ and they meet four times a year to originally, I think, read a Shakespeare play. What’s happened, more recently, is that we tend to look at some DVD or a film version of a Shakespeare play and then discuss it. We’re supposed to this Saturday see Romeo & Juliet. Now, actually there’s been a couple of diversions from that to instead of a Shakespeare play, we’re going to discuss Ibsen’s ‘The Doll House’ and that’s another group which is pretty much an East Falls group. Although at least one couple lives in Germantown.

There is, has been formed a kind of exploratory group to organize what they want to call the ‘East Falls Village’ which is a group endeavoring to work together to enable people to live in their own homes and it’s sort of modeled after one famous group in Boston’s Beacon Hill where people got together to decide how they could help one another doing errands, taking people to the doctor’s and that sort of thing and enable them to continue to live in their community and be sort of self-sustained. And Charlie Day, from down the street, is sort of the head of that group.

KH: Lee, thank you very much for participating in this East Falls oral history project!